The insurance companies have made sure that there is no going back. When we raised our families, health care costs were under control, the more insurance got involved the more complicated it became for health care providers and for patients, the costs and red tape have just spiraled out of control.

When I tell our kids that it cost us $1000 for each delivery, including prenatal and postpartum care for each of them. They drop their jaws. Now a normal delivery is $10,000-$15,000. Heaven help you if there are any complications.

There's no going back, Gracie! We burned our bridges by letting insurance companies make all the rules. It's very sad.

My patients in the NICU end up with million dollar bills, many families file bankruptcy as a result. Our system is way out of control, unfortunately.

IMHO it is very dangerous to have people whose only objective is reducing costs to be the only ones controlling.

Ask yourself why do we have a medical profession? why did it begin and why has so much effort and resources been employed to raise the standards of care? Why because society rightfully understands that alleviating suffering is a noble goal......

Now ask yourself why did we create insurance? the answer is simply to ensure risks that we could not handle. Insurance is the pooling of resources to help people cope with financial events that they otherwise could never afford.

Ask why do we have this controversy and the answer lies in greedy people patients, doctors insurers. doctors in an effort to protect themselves over-prescribe ie over treat. Insurance companies pushed in the early 1980's for more control of their insurance dollars to control what they believed to be higher cost resulting from over treating and plain mismanagement on the part of the medical community.

The Affordability Act is not a health act it is only a method of how health care will be distributed. it does nothing to improve the health care system and by an account of the majority will only make it worse and more costly.

So given this madness we have people who are charged with reducing costs as their only goal. since the higher medical cost are incurred in th last two years of a person lives what d you think is going to happen when the tires hit the road?

As to the experts on health care styles I wished they make up their minds as to what is good for us once and for all, Because their flip flopping only confuses the issue.

for me I am going to continue my life style of moderation and enjoy my across the board menu and the heck with the experts because I thin of those folks who pushed away the dessert cart just before the Titanic went down as one great columnist once said

About lung cancer: A woman on my block died of lung cancer a few years ago. She had never smoked but lived in a large Texas city that had a lot of air polution (smog). Different people get lung cancer for different reasons that may or may not be avoidable. But smoking is totally avoidable.

I was just reading about the "Affordable Care Act" in the Daily Sun a few days ago, and it calls for charging older people more. Roughly, a 21 year old, non-smoker, would pay a little over $200 per month. And they comparred it to a 60 year old, non-smoker, who would pay several hundred dollars more. I don't remember exactly but I believe it was over $700 per month.

You made a wrong assumption which I suppose is common for anyone who's not used to talking about health risks. Playing by the "rules" basically means: Living a healthy lifestyle that's generally known to lower one's risk for disease. (No one is handing out guarantees.)

We all have predispositions for one thing or another; all the more reason to practice a healthy lifestyle.

I didn't think I needed to state the obvious. Following the rules means living a healthy lifestyle in order to lower one's risk. Nothing is guaranteed.

In my opening post I talked about "accountability" and taking responsibility. Getting older is not a lifestyle choice. Everyone gets older. So, for example, an older person who smokes should pay more than an older person who doesn't smoke. An older person who is overweight should pay more than an older person who's not overweight.

No, I don't think a younger healthier person should pay more to take care of older people, assuming that he/she is living a healthy lifestyle. Only those with unhealthy lifestyles should be charged more. About "pre-existing conditions": It's getting too hypothetical, it might depend on what caused the pre-existing condition. Should I pay less? I'm in medicare so I do pay less. But I keep myself healthy and I don't use anything close to what I pay in. Many in Medicare, who live unhealthy lifestyles, use much more than they pay in. And that's why medicare is having difficulty. Those in medicare who take health risks, like smoking, should pay more. That would help keep medicare solvent.


People should not be charged more simply because they get older. Of course there will be increases because of inflation in medical care etc..

I'm 72 and totally healthy. Not too long ago there was a man who lived to 114 and was totally healthy up until one month before he died. A Mexican woman just died at 115 and was never sick. A man who lived in Leesburg died at 109 and was never sick. And there were many many more, too many to mention all of them. They all lived healthy lifestyles. Why charge people a "penalty" simply because they get older?

My mother is 94 and in almost perfect health - takes an iron pill and Aricept. She rarely has a medicare claim and is paying her own way in memory care, so there are old folks not requiring medical attention.

As far as medicare having difficulty it can be attributed to fraud and waste much more than care that is provided. They will pay for anything as long as it is coded correctly. It makes my hair stand on end when someone says "why wouldn't I have that treatment I may not have really needed - I don't have to pay for it". Yes you do with you tax dollars. People we all need to wake up and smell the coffee.

How do you know what lifestyle they lived and how healthy they were, any facts to support the comment? Seems there is always an experience or story to fit every situation.
People that think they are perfectly healthy find out different everyday. I would guess every member of your entire family is also just as healthy as you.

Basically you are saying everyone that is not perfect like you think you are, should be paying more and you should be paying less as you say you do..

I don't think we need to picking on any particular group and pointing fingers at others including the elderly is where I stand. Ha! ha! :boom:

Your questions indicate that you don't really believe that lifestyle has very much to do with anything. But I know differently because I have been studying this subject for many years. I know from experience.

No, again you're reading things into my statements that I never said. I never said that I think I'm perfect. Do you have a grudge against people who live healthy lifestyles and are healthy? I don't eat processed foods and I'm at my ideal weight. Should I pay the same as people who overindulge in processed foods and are overweight? If you think it's fun to take that risk, you should also have the fun of paying for that risk.

It's not "picking" and it's not "pointing fingers". It's called facing reality and taking responsibility. And I believe there are health insurance companies that already do this. Even the Affordable Care Act, which I'm not a fan of, distinguishes between smokers and non-smokers.

In a discussion about health care costs, you were proudly giving the detailed results of your medical tests, and rightly so. Your results are great. I was making a point that emotional health is also important, as with a life lived with joy and generosity. I think there are two components to healthy living, body and mind. For instance, some people with healthy bodies could be depressed or have emotional issues that also cost money to treat. I'm sorry if you found my comments superfluous.

...

I agree that emotional health is important too. If a person is optimistic, has a positive outlook, is happy, joyous and generous, it's good for one's immune system. It's just that emotional health is not something that typically gets measured for the purpose of trying to lower health care costs. Should happy people pay less for health insurance? :)

Search: The Obesity Index, The Cost of Obesity by State

The above site states, in the opening paragraph: The cost of treating illness related to obesity (in the U.S.) is as high as 149 billion per year.

This information comes from a reliable source, a division of the Centers for disease Control and Prevention.

I could not agree more, Dotti; I have read through this entire thread, and you are the only one who is willing to make the point that the reason there is no "going back" is that the insurance industry (with its lobbyists0 is so firmly entrenched that there will never be an escape from our medical offerings being determined by insurance company management and implemented by insurance company clerks.

IMHO, this is the absolute worst thing about the Affordable Health Care Act—that to get it passed, the insurance industry had to be kowtowed to and had to be left with the powers that it had somehow acquired over the years. Even so, the two improvements cited by Dotti—"denial due to pre existing conditions, and with life time max. coverage"—are significant. I expect more to emerge in time.

Though this has to do with the kind of person I am, I cannot—and likely will never be able to—understand what anyone's objection is to all folks having access to heath care (as is the case in most developed nations). If I were a wagering person, though, I would bet (and wish I were wrong...) that those who object are not those who end up clogging our hospitals' ERs with sore throats and sprained ankles (that we all end up paying for anyway!) but who cannot afford to go to a doctor....

Indeed a broken system!

Ridiculous conversation...first, now lung cancer is occurring more often in people who do not, I repeat do not, smoke. Most life threatening diseases are a part and parcel of getting old and genes. Cancer is familial or indiscriminate or caused by the environment. All of the above posts seems to want to "punish" the sick because they got sick!!! When you are ill like that the last thing you need is to have large bills, people pointing fingers at you that you could have stopped it by "being healthy" Folks, we are mortal, not immortal, and unless you die in an accident, some illness is probably going to get you. How many do you know die peacefully in their sleep? Now you are talking about making people pay more when they get sick? Please!!!

As for the Affordable Care Act... if it's so great, why did Congress who voted it in, voted themselves and their staff out of it??? Because the staff threatened to quit on them.... and now what is going on with Labor and this Act...I just got a glimpse of it on the news..seems some kind of accommodation has been made.... So Congress and maybe Labor and Congress staff doesn't have to deal with Affordable Care... What Does That Tell You??????

What's your conclusion? It's okay to smoke because you might get lung cancer anyway?

That may be true but mainly because of the poor lifestyle environment that most people promote.


That's the emotional interpretation. It's not about that at all. It's simply about paying appropriately for the risk one chooses to take. Just as one would do with any other type of insurance. If one buys a house in a flood zone one pays more for insurance to cover the added risk of flooding. It's a simple concept.

Theatrics asside, it's not about charging sick people more. It's about charging higher premiums to those who choose to take higher (undue) risks. One's premium would go down as soon as the risky behavior is discontinued.