Health Care Thread

Ahhh, "HSA" = Health Savings Accounts. I imagine I'd have to have money to put into a savings account to worry about one of those, so it hasn't been something I've concerned myself with. I can see the value, don't get me wrong, but outside of my area of knowledge I'm afraid.

It goes back to showing companies hire and fire based more on their actual need than economic or possible economic concerns. Kind of like that know-nothing business owner Aryasar has been telling us for a few years.

Has anyone actually gotten past the point where you log in with the account you made?

Maybe since I'm in VA the exchange website actually goes nowhere because my state has promised to do everything it can to block ACA. And what do you know, we have a gubernatorial election next month!

MaulNutz_sl said:

Got you fucker! Rich and sick... How many X-boxes and oxy pills did you give Rav?!

Click to expand...

Zero - hated the bitch before almost everyone - she's actually why I was gone from 2007 or so until Rerolled.org because I annoyed her too much during people hating on beta VG. [And never would ever give or suggest oxy to anyone - stuff makes me projectile vomit =p]

Last year bcbs again raised our (wife, son, mine) premium as they have done every year. We are healthy, fairly active, non smokers with no history of family illnesses. The only thing we have used the insurance for was yearly visits because drs won't prescribe BC without it.

We couldn't afford it anymore, so we swapped to an HSA HDHP. Saved us about 700 dollars a month. Got the letter this week saying the hdhp policy was deemed non compliant with the ACA, the new one has a higher deductible, a second deductable for "non in network" coverage that is over twice as much, and costs us over 450.00 more a month than the old plan. Our insurance coverage is once again higher than our mortgage.

So it will be interesting to see how this mess all works out. For me, it seems likely we will end up on the exchanges. :-(

What's bad about exchanges?

If you're self insured you should damn well end up on the exchanges. If you're self employed/small business under 100 employees you get access to a small business exchange and under 25 employees you get tax credits (around 40%?) For premiums in 2014 and 2015.

I haven't read anything about obamacare affecting hsas specifically. There will be a catastrophic plan available to those under 30 that I'm sure will be compatible with it and I believe other deductibles were set at the max annual contribution of hsas (5950).

I had an hsa/hdhp for a year before aca got me on parents plan until 27 and it was great because it was tax free and you could pay for things that insurance wouldn't cover in the first place (glasses, contacts, ortho, yeah I'm a mutant). Also you didn't have to deal with 9 month bcbs hotlines trying to get your shit straight after they deny a preventative check up -- you just swipe a debit card to your hsa which you also have the option to invest in mutual funds etc...

Specialty physicians are getting crushed under this new system. What's lost amongst the media and doesn't reach the general public is the fact that the power under obamacare has been transferred from the physicians to the administrators of hospitals. Which means people with masters and univ of Phoenix mbas get to determine their own salary, while controlling the livelihoods of far more educated ( and, generally speaking, far more interested in your welfare).
Why? Because with obamacare, aco's, etc, the guess who the government is giving the money bag to? The hospitals. The same money bag where previously a much larger chunk went directly to Physicians directly.

The litiginous nature of this country disgusts me. Govt healthcare in ther countries with smaller physician salaries exists but there is also protected/controlled physician liability in those systems.

In this country, we want our physicians (some of the best trained in the world ) to throttle our salaries to reduced levels, yet the lawyer associations lobby is powerful enough to prevent the necessary tort reform to along with it.

With hundreds of thousands in debt, not making decent money until age 35+, and incredible medicolegal liability , who the fuck will specialize when I can do two years of training and become a primary physician, who will make as much in the new system? Or better yet not even go into medicine, just funnel more of our brightest minds into MBAs cuz we certainly need more of that.

This will be amusing to watch unravel over the next couple decades.

Get used to that dr. Patel you can barely understand who graduated from a questionable Indian medical school in a country known for corrupt educational institutions. You'll be seeing a lot more of him

Pasteton, I love you.

Walk into any VA in the country and prepare yourselves. My doctor comes from Ghana and consults an upside down phone book when diagnosing problems. All the free painkillers I can eat though!

How does the money bag go directly to the hospital?

Welp, just found out insurance costs are going up by 6% for all plans at my company, and they are passing it along to us rather than absorbing it like has happened in years past. Well, technically mine is not going up since the high deductible insurance is free, so my deductible is going to be 6% higher this year ($1,250->$1,325)

You're being ripped off. It goes up by that much every fucking year. Which is an improvement from when it rose 10-12% every year.

Companies are just using this opportunity to fuck people is all. Big surprise. Did you get your 1.8% raise?

Heh, they haven't changed the salary one iota since 2010. One of the reasons I keep pretty strict working hours...