Health insurance companies are in business for one purpose: to make money. Why do we need them? Well, many would argue that it keeps other people from paying if you get sick and go to the doctor but can't afford to pay for it. This is a false belief. If I pay $120,000 into my insurance company over the course of my policy and I then end up in a hospital and run up $1 million of doctors bills, I have not paid for myself. No, the other people who have paid into the insurance company and not used their policies ended up paying for me.

If I could afford health insurance, I would certainly pay for it. So, perhaps I am being a little hypocritical. Why would I pay for insurance? Because it does spread out high costs over long periods of time, and I personally don't mind paying for other people. Every time we have had insurance in the past, we paid more for our insurance than we did for healthcare without insurance. This is a simple fact. Do we use healthcare as much without insurance- probably not. Surgeries are delayed until we can afford them. Still with a $6000 deductible, we would probably have to do this anyway. Visiting the doctor is never delayed when it is needed.

Insurance, in general, adds much too the cost of health care. First, the people at the insurance company have to be paid. Second, the people at the doctor's office who file insurance and work with insurance companies on costs and how much they are going to get for each procedure- have to be paid. Finally, insurance companies have been getting worse and worse about denying claims even for necessary items. That means than instead of simply filing paperwork once, time and money are lost in the appeal process. If anything insurance companies, including government plans like Medicaid and Medicare add to the cost of medical coverage.

STOP! the ACA "replacement"

The big debate in Congress and the Senate right now is how to get rid of the ACA. However, instead of just repealing the entire bill (which is why the Repbulicrats were elected) they are going to "replace" it. Before everyone who has been hurt by this bill gets on the bandwagon to praise their efforts, you better stand up and take notice of what they are really doing.

First, a little history: This mess probably began with pressure from special interest groups because the government at that time (about a decade or so ago) forced insurance companies to stop having "maximum limits" on their policies. To most people, this sounds like a good deal, but very few patients reach those maximum limits even with serious diseases like cancer. In actuality, this move benefited few, but made insurance companies pretty hot, I am sure. They could not feasibly make money without increasing costs—and when they did that how were they supposed to attract healthy people to buy their policies? Thankfully, a "low-cost" option that benefited healthy people was created in 2004- the HSA.

These accounts were hybrids between traditional insurance (which costs insurers a lot of money when unhealthy people purchased it) and high deductible plans. Because they are cheaper than traditional insurance, they frequently appeal to low income individuals who can't afford regular insurance. The problem is that most of these low-income individuals use them like high-deductible insurance, in other words, they don't use them. They don't maintain a health savings account because they don't have the spare money to put into it. They simply pay for the insurance in case something catastrophic happens.

President Obama for whatever reason (perhaps campaign contributions) decided to further help insurance companies who not only lost maximum policy limits but also were no longer able to deny people for pre-existing conditions. I am not saying these people should not be covered. No, I personally think if a private insurance company deems a patient "uninsurable" and the government wants to be truly noble, it should create a special insurance policy for these people (who usually can't work either) that the government funds- oh wait, I think it is called "Medicaid." Otherwise the government should just say they are not going to help because what they have effectively done is taken something that is not even remotely a private businesses responsibility (health insurers) and forced them to deal with the problem without compensating them.

As we all know, special government insurance policies were not on the former President Obama's agenda. Instead, the ACA was a great government money-making scheme to help offset some enormous expenses it was incurring in other areas and a pat on the back to insurance companies. I am still not entirely convinced that both the Bush and Obama administrations were not actually working together on this. The ACA did not seek to truly help poor people by providing all of them with insurance. (It is estimated 200% of the "official poverty level" is the real poverty level. They could have simply updated the "official poverty level" to the real poverty level. This would have automatically given insurance to everyone in every state if they needed it because they were too poor to afford it, but it would have cost a fortune without increasing tax revenue.) Instead, the ACA required everyone to get health insurance (making a high-deductible HSA look more enticing) or pay a government tax. I firmly believe this was done to make insurance companies happy because as was already stated poor people may purchase a HSA designed policy, but they do not use them. People who had more money could choose what they wanted to purchase the HSA policy or traditional insurance (is there any wonder why this was called a "gold" plan on the marketplace).

And here is the interesting note: rich people like HSAs. Why? Because it is another tax free savings account. It can even be inherited by your spouse, and you or your spouse can withdraw all the money in the HSA tax-free after you reach 65 (and use it for whatever you like). Now, if you designate someone else as your beneficiary, that person will have to pay taxes on it as income. Still, HSAs are now a part of every estate planners portfolio of investments.

And this is where our current legislature sucks as much as our previous one did. By replacing parts of the ACA with an expanded HSA law, they are really still helping rich people and insurance companies. To make it even more sickening, the Government Accountability Office has been studying HSAs since 2004 when they were first inducted into legislature. These reports are available to anyone who wants them, but in 12 years of research done in a multitude of ways, they all say the same thing: HSAs are only beneficial to two populations—single healthy people and rich people who want a tax free savings account. The GAO found that in 2008, people had an average income of over $100,000 before they preferentially chose an HSA.

What can you do? Well you can write your Representative and Senator. But, American politics have long been in the pockets of businesses and special interest groups. We don't need term limits. We need informed voters voting out people who have been a part of the system too long. 

Indiana: The State That DOESN'T Work

I laugh whenever I see the motto, "Indiana, a state that works!" Hopefully by now those of you who are democrats realize the world isn't going to end under the new President but merely move forward, same old same old. And those of you who voted Republican to repeal Obamacare are coming to the realization that the elected officials have no desire to get rid of Obamacare, instead you will be getting Obamacare 2.0 (or Trumpcare if you please). Next time maybe you will listen to me when I say both parties are the same and perhaps we could finally elect a third party in four years.

However, in the mean time, those who think the poor will be getting a logical healthcare plan that "works" like the one in Indiana had better be warned. Indiana's HiP 2.0 doesn't work. We currently have FIVE appeals going for different reasons because Anthem refuses to accept our payment or even acknowledge we have a payment due, the state refuses to use our 2016 income as our actual earned income for the past year and instead is projecting what we will be making in 2018 and using that, the state agencies have NO CLUE about the programs the state has and although my husband should have been transferred to a program that would protect him from the "You have insurance this month" "You lost your insurance this month" "You have insurance this month" ups and downs of regular HiP 2.0 health insurance, they have just dropped him from insurance altogether (this month), and finally, because although the State Insurance sent a letter to my son at our home address, they are denying him medication because they do not know where he lives. I kid you not. If the letter did not contain personal information, I would upload a picture of it.

Welcome to Obamacare 2.0 America. The biggest irony in this insurance craze is that people support everyone having insurance because when a poor person without insurance walks into a hospital and can't pay, the hospital has to raise prices and everyone pays for him or her. So here is the irony: With Obamacare and any other forced insurance program, if a poor person walks into a hospital (with state insurance) guess who pays for it? That's right- everyone else.

Poor people DO need insurance. That is the bottom line. Because they don't have a choice: they can't afford to pay for medical care and doctors don't take chickens or allow someone to do their laundry for them anymore in exchange for service. But everyone in America doesn't need insurance. If they can pay for medical care, let them do it out of their pockets. If they can't, then everyone else is going to be paying for it no matter what.

Why do we keep buying, supporting, and reading news media that lies to us? Part I

The trend has been increasing over the past years, but I think it has reached its ultimate low (or high depending on how you look at it). Lets take the "budget reducing" ACA (Obamacare). Now, common sense would say that if you are implementing a widespread healthcare plan filled with subsidies, your budget would increase. However, everyone in the government has been telling news agencies: Oh no, this will "reduce the deficit." Now, Republicans have made their stand that it wouldn't do this- but really, did they say so because of research or because they just wanted to argue with Democrats?

The news could have taken the time to read through the entire act. They could have consulted numerous independent accountants (who also read the act) as to their opinions. Instead, they just printed: The ACA will reduce the deficit. And the people believed them. And the news media has continued to report on this consider these as examples: 2012-2013, 2013, and 2014. Oh, they stick the words in quotes (as I have done), but does that make them any less accountable when they do not present a balanced view and when they ignore doing any research or fact checking to support the presented view? Not in my book.

And look at what happened this year- exactly one year after the ACA required everyone to get health insurance or pay a penalty. Well, our deficit increased in March (when the IRS was probably paying out a lot of subsidies) by 54% over last year. In fact, even news agencies are beginning to print a slightly altered story. For example, this one says that Obamacare is costing less than projected (because fewer people signed up and because the insurance offered on the exchanges costs less than expected because it isn't as good as what employers used to offer); however, the DEFICIT IS STILL RAISING at a higher than expected rate. In addition, two of the major items contributing to this are Medicare and Medicaid. (Um... sorry but those are BOTH part of the ACA - did they suddenly forget about the Medicaid expansion and all the ACA battles over reducing the "doughnut" in Medicare?)

I continue to question- why do people believe this? Where are the facts?

Robbing from Peter (Medicare) to Pay Paul (ACA - aka Obamacare)

So, the democrats are so nervous about the fact that some insurers are considering health insurance rate hikes on the exchanges for 2015, that they have decided that it would be perfectly acceptable to take unlimited funding away from other federal health insurance plans (like Medicare and Veterans) in order to bribe insurers to keep their premium costs down on the exchanges.

It also doesn't surprise me that doctors are seeing an increase in the number of people visiting their ER. Most of the ER abuses I saw were either done by homeless people (who came completely drunk to get warm and a free meal) a population that still wouldn't be able to buy insurance or that would still  be on Medicaid, and people who had insurance (who came in because they had a sinus infection and couldn't wait until Monday to get it checked out).

By now, most people accept that the ACA did not do what it said it would do. In fact, many of the "fixes" that have been put in were done by the President (which is illegal, by the way, since we do not live in a dictatorship according to our Constitution). This appears to be yet another insertion made by our Commander in Chief without asking Congress first.

Granted, if the Republicans would have just held their guns during the shutdown, and the American people who didn't want this disaster had stood by them regardless of their political standing, perhaps this wouldn't have happened. However, the Republicans have instead shown the rest of America that they are spineless idiots. If only America would get rid of these jokes of political Parties, and vote for independents instead.

FORBES: RAND Comes Clean: Obamacare's Exchanges Enrolled Only 1.4 Million Previously Uninsured Individuals - ‎4‎/‎9‎/‎2014

Is this headline really a surprise? No. Perhaps the biggest surprise is the one pointed out in this blog I found: http://healthpolicyandmarket.blogspot.com/2014/03/was-obamacare-worth-it-how-many-of.html#more

Yes, it would be easy to calculate and release the numbers of how many signed up (previously uninsured and paid all their premiums to date). But, just as it would have been easy to give us numbers from the first weeks when the ACA website crashed itself like no tomorrow, the only reason I can think of now for withholding the information is that it would make the government look bad.

I don't believe the ACA is anything more than a nod to insurance companies. You see, before the ACA was passed, the insurance companies were forced by congress to get rid of pre-existing condition exclusions and lifetime policy maximums. The insurance companies were upset and wanted more money, so they piled heaps into the democrats pockets to pass a law requiring everyone to get insurance or else pay a tax. They did this so they could sign up healthy people to help offset their costs removing policy limits and exclusions.

If congress truly wanted to reduce medical costs, they would impose limits on how much drug companies could charge for drugs and medical devices on patent (enough to make up the cost of researching it plus a reasonable profit). They would forbid television advertising of medicines.

Now, I not only want to know how many total new people out of the 200 in some odd million were actually insured by this law that is going to cost me 1% of my income in taxes next year, but I also want to know how many people have lost their insurance and how many people have lost their jobs because of it. I want to know what the real impact is - not the fluffy government numbers.

192,000 Jobs Added!

Sorry, not impressed. At the beginning of the week they were predicting 200,000 - maybe even 210,000. Now that it turns out to be only 192,000 - that's close enough? Yeah, I don't need unemployment statistics or economic analysts to tell me the economy is not peaches and roses.

Finding a job is difficult if you are employed and near impossible if you aren't. 

P.S. I am also not impressed with the way the government is trying to add new Medicaid signups into its wimpy 7 million insured through ACA. Plus 3 million for Medicaid, that makes 10 million. Even with that boost it's nowhere close to the 15 million they wanted at the beginning. I want to know how it compares to the number of people who have lost their insurance because of the ACA, but I don't see the news reporting that because everything is peaches and roses.