A week?!?!
I pay $600 a YEAR for our extended benefits plan through my work. This pays for glasses, dentist, massage, chiropodist, all the shit our provincial plan doesn’t pay for. Good lord. $600 a week! What does that cover?
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Ha. Point, match to alamnat. 
I forgot that part. I guess I was all snarled up in ‘logic’… 
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Non private rooms are half the fun.
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Per month, roughly. That paycheck-deduction x 2, and I’m paid bi-weekly.
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I mean I always know its nuts and I know that you guys are getting hosed but I’m always shocked when I see the actual numbers… honestly, thats just insane.
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For larger items like cancer treatment, it might be better to use Mustang GT as the currency.
Breast cancer treatment: 4.75 Mustang GTs.
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Oooooh you’re talking about the other expenses?
Well, there are kids, pre-natal visits, emergency room visits, the odd ambulance ride that comes in around $800 or so (only 2 in the last 6 years, but that’s more than enough), doctor’s visits, specialists, occupational therapists, skin doctors for a congenital nevus on top of the head, two kids with eczma, 2 kids with special needs still being diagnosed, prescriptions, etc. etc. etc. That’s including dental and eye, though.
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Did I condemn anyone to die in my comment? No. I’m talking about people that I interact with in my area. Ones who do work hard and have a huge deductible with a single provider to choose from. They have practically no use for the government mandated insurance because it costs to much to use. I also see people who game the system for SNAP benefits, EBT cards, etc., as well as medicaid benefits, state and federal. Are you denying that people don’t game the system? Check welfare fraud arrest statistics sometime.
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I used to work for a company that processed medical claim forms.
The system would fail out on a bill that was over a million dollars, but only 1 or 2 of those came through per week.
Not much we could do to automate it - the federal data-interchange format couldn’t handle 7 digits of billing at the time.
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fraud levels in SNAP appear to be as low as with the other “pure welfare” programs we just touched on: “Payment error” rates – money sent in incorrect amounts and/or to the wrong people – have declined from near 10 percent a decade ago to 3 to 4 percent today, most of it due, again, to government error, not active fraud. The majority of food-stamp fraud appears to be generated by supermarkets “trafficking” in the food stamps. Beneficiaries intentionally ripping off the taxpayers account for perhaps 1 percent of payments.
Edit to add: seems to be about the same rate of welfare fraud as there is voter fraud no?
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Is it higher than the 20million that became insured under ACA?
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…My glasses, after insurance, cost me $400. And I know you know this, but US and Canadian currency are trading pretty close. They look alright, but aren’t “designer”.
No, really, you may find a dapper dressed gentleman in your shed 
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Yes, life time health insurance limits are a thing, a thing that Obamacare ended, but the Republicans are bringing back. It was rather touch and go with the slow phase in of Obama care. My friend was planning to quit his job and take another one at the local prison to reset his limit with a new insurer. Luckily, Obamacare eliminated the limit in time and she was able to get her transplant and he was able to keep his job without worrying about a pre-existing condition health care blackout. She is doing much better now. Yes, pre-existing condition health care blackouts are a thing …
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Yeah, sure. They were phrased very differently, were talking about different groups, and Chaffetz was supposed to be answering for the people who were getting benefits removed rather than people who just weren’t getting benefits added. But other than being completely different, I suppose they were exactly the same.
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So very much this. I’ve never understood why any of what you just outlined isn’t bleeding obvious. If I can go to the doctor for regular checkups and stave off a potential surgery or other treatment by doing so, depending on the surgery I may have just paid off my entire lifetime health plan in one go.
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We don’t have a shed but we do have an RV. I’ll leave the key in the BBQ in the back yard for you. Propane is full and the water tank is empty but its above freezing mostly these days so you can fill it with the hose.
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Since we’re on the topic of “how do we pay for everyone to have affordable health care?” let’s start with getting rid of the means-testing administrative overhead and just give everyone that coverage. Bam! No more fraud, and no more paying people to track it down and recover it!
Oh hey, and while we’re talking about health insurance, I want to know what dark ritual the insurance companies in the US performed to get eyes and teeth disqualified as things that they need to cover as part of “health insurance”. Look, @sftroop86, I found another inefficiency we can get rid of!
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Its a big thing up here to push to get dental and eye care covered. There’s a groundswell of movement because teeth and vision are fucking necessary! Its obscene its not covered!
Prescriptions will be the last to fall.
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And a few years later under ACA, the deductible and lack of insurance providers have made those 20 million that were insured unable to use the insurance because it is cost prohibitive. I’m not talking about half butt statistics that are cut and paste from some biased web site. I’m talking about people that I know and work with here in my area and what they are experiencing.
Wait, what? I’ve been insured by the ACA and you can put me in the bucket of, “never even close to happened”.
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