Black People : Families Unable to pay High HMO copays

[Alarm Clock]

What ever happened to "Single Payer" a system that would have bypassed the HMO extortioners, I mean middle men, and lowered the price of health insurance copays?

Anyone remember this campaign promise in 2008?


Health Care’s Forgotten Crisis: Families Can’t Afford Medical Care
by Richard Eskow
The real healthcare battle in this country isn’t the one being fought over the bill everyone now calls “Obamacare.” In fact, it’s not a battle between Republicans and Democrats at all. The real battle is the one millions of Americans face every day as they struggle to pay medical bills that now average nearly $10,000 per year – if they’re “lucky.”

(Photo: US Pacific Command/ Flickr)The United States is now the only developed nation on Earth where the average family with insurance pays more for health care than it does for groceries. That includes both the family share of premiums and out-of-pocket costs for medical treatment. In fact, those out-of-pockets costs alone exceed a family’s average yearly cost for gasoline, according to a new study.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/28-6

 

[Kadijah]

This article is about PPOs, not HMOs. There is a diff between the 2 with cost of healthcare being #1, i.e., PPOs are waaaay more expensive than HMOs:

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-the-difference-between-a-hmo-and-ppo.htm

 

[thePreacher]

I was against ObamaCare from the day I found out he designed it to include, not replace, the HMOs. It is a testament to the gullibility of black folks that most of the uninsured ones think ObamaCare will insure them for free. That is not how it is designed. If you are eligible for medicaid or medicare now, sure, you will become eligible for ObamaCare, but you may also end up having to pay premiums out of your 1st of da month check. If you refuse to pay the premium, you will have to pay a fine and still not be insured. ObamaCare, stripped of all the hype, is just a scheme to convince some of the people who are currently uninsured to become HMO customers. Obama says the larger insured base will reduce premiums for everybody, but that is not how capitalism works in the real world. In the real world, HMO premiums always go up while covered services always goes down.

 

[Kadijah]

If you are eligible for medicaid or medicare now, sure, you will become eligible for ObamaCare, but you may also end up having to pay premiums out of your 1st of da month check. If you refuse to pay the premium, you will have to pay a fine and still not be insured.

Medicaid is for people on welfare, thus nothing will come out of their 1st of da month check. It's free.

As for Medicare, seniors already pay monthly for that service, thus, nothing new here there, either.

 

[thePreacher]

Medicaid is for people on welfare, thus nothing will come out of their 1st of da month check. It's free.

Yeah ... just like FEMA assistance provided free housing to all those black folks after Katrina. The devil, as always with government benefits, will be in the details. One detail which Obama supporters are not telling poor people is that some them who will qualify for subsidized premiums will have to pay the whole amount up front and then be reimbursed later via tax credits. Why? Because, hello, Uncle Sam is broke and living on credit. How else did people think our lying scoundrel of a black president was going to come up with the vast sums of money necessary to insure all those currently uninsured poor people?

Hello. He don't bail out nobody whose last name ain't Goldman, Sachs, or Chase, Morgan.

Nothing is free in this world. Somebody always has to pay -- which is a great line from a Walter Mosley novel. And you do get what you pay for. I had Medicaid briefly after my open heart surgery. It is the absolute _WORST_ insurance you can get and you _never_ know ahead of time what will and will not be covered. My sister is on it in an assisted living facility and they were only willing to pay for one blood pressure test a week which as any one with hypertension can tell you is worse than none at all. I even offered to buy her a machine so she could check it herself but like a lot of older folks she is uncomfortable risking the displeasure of her medical care professionals.

Those who wish to hear the other side of what Obama supporters are selling about ObamaCare should read an article Forbes magazine put out specifically as a warning to blacks and hispanics who think ObamaCcare is going to provide adequate free healthcare:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/merrill...ent-obamacare-will-hurt-blacks-and-hispanics/