Careful not to catch pneumonia out there if you don’t have health insurance. Kidding… I just take comfort in the fact that it would be essentially impossible to screw up the system any worse than it is right now…
Shall I invite you to my humble ancestral home in India? Free accomodations, no guarantees on the quality of the healthcare 
I can guarantee one thing, and one thing only: No matter what, there will be unhappy, angry people.
This is true no matter who wins elections, or which party/ideology drives policy.
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Bernie Sanders introduced a bill allowing Americans to buy drugs from Canada and other countries so there would be some recourse to inflated prices charged by the pharmaceutical companies. Just voted down and 13 Democrats, including liberal New Jersey Corey Booker voted against the bill. If it had passed PWDs without insurance coverage at least could pay less for insulin via mail from Canada. Did not expect anything better from Republicans but the 13 Dems should be be remembered for their votes come election time.
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I have health insurance. My daughter is 20, in college, with Type 1 diabetes. If Obamacare is repealed, we will not be able to continue to carry her under our plan. Don’t remember the old cut off date, could possibly be 21? College students can get health care through the University, but not sure how comprehensive it is. I want to keep her on my good health care plan. Those of you covered under employer plans, as most of us are, must also remember that the preexisting conditions clause will also be scrapped. So hope you are not planning a change in employment.
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One person equals one vote. That is the way it works in every other election in this country except for the presidential election. Only the presidential election is determined by the electoral college. Gore lost to Bush with disastrous results, i.e., the war in Iraq, but won the popular vote. This is the second time this has happened in the last four elections. However, our main problem is we do not pay enough attention to voting in Congress. Need to give full attention to the Senate and House of Representatives. We can curtail Trump’s power if we can win back the Senate in two years.
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Actually these things are not necessarily partisan. Ever since the Citizens United, essentially unlimited money has flowed into the coffers of both parties. And the pharmaceutical industry has been a huge player in this game. Neither Republicans nor Democrats want to pass such a measure and risk losing all that easy money.
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Advocacy is what needs to take place. call your representatives and tell them. In my mind it it just not right to dissolve ACA and not have a replacement. Or do they only care about themselves,they have insurance ? Nancy
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- Americans can already buy drugs from Canada. Check out northwest pharmacy website.
- the old cutoff date was that children could remain on your plan through college.
- employer healthcare plans never excluded people with Preexisting conditions. The whole PC issue is for individual plans which are not the same thing as employer based of group plans. If you switched employers COBRA allowed you to continue coverage unbroken. If coverage was unbroken there was no exclusions-- this worked to prevent abuses by people just going and getting coverage through an employer only when they or a dependent were facing an expensive health crisis
- this isn’t a political forum there are plenty of those out there if you’re looking for a political debate.
wonder what happens and who carries the liability when drugs are bought from other countries?
[quote=“Sam19, post:130, topic:57237”]
3) employer healthcare plans never excluded people with Preexisting conditions. The whole PC issue is for individual plans which are not the same thing as employer based of group plans. If you switched employers COBRA allowed you to continue coverage unbroken. If coverage was unbroken there was no exclusions-- this worked to prevent abuses by people just going and getting coverage through an employer only when they or a dependent were facing an expensive health crisis[/quote]
The pre-existing condition issue is huge, since (a) COBRA only lasts 18 months, and (b) who says everyone is covered by an employee plan?
[quote=“Sam19, post:130, topic:57237”]
4) this isn’t a political forum there are plenty of those out there if you’re looking for a political debate. [/quote]
Insurance coverage for diabetics should be totally appropriate for us to talk about. I really disagree with you: if one party makes it impossible for diabetics to get what their basic needs for LIFE are, we should fight it. I don’t care which side it is, it is WRONG. And I have thought that way before my kid became a T1D.
Sorry for being a little warm about this:-) Imho, no country with our standard of living should make it impossible for its citizens to receive regular care for life-threatening conditions.
If any party ever makes it impossible for people with diabetes to get their needs, I will fire the first shot. But that hasn’t happened ever, and it’s not happening now.
While cobra only lasts 18 months, it only needs to last until a new employers benefits activate, which is always less than 18 months.
I don’t know one single person in real life who has ever had an individual healthcare policy… and I know a lot of people
And yes insurance coverage for diabetics is entirely appropriate to talk about. Much more reasonable attempts to disentangle it from politics than going off on tangents about the electoral college etc can be made and would be more appropriate for this sort of forum
In addition to the points brought up by Sam’s 1-4, in the “old-days” if you were denied insurance because of a pre-existing condition you could buy your insurance from a state’s risk pool. While I don’t think it is wrong to be worried, I do think people are making this seem like the end of the world, when in fact it isn’t.
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That means you start work for a company with a health plan. There are tens of thousands of companies who do not have health plans, or who do not offer coverage to people who work less than so many hours a week. And what about those who are self employed?
[quote=“Sam19, post:133, topic:57237”]
I don’t know one single person in real life who has ever had an individual healthcare policy… and I know a lot of people [/quote]
(1) I know lots of them. If I was not married to someone working in a large company, I would be one. Any contractor has to have an individual healthcare policy or go without one. So does anyone who works for a company where they don’t get health insurance. Or someone who doesn’t have a job for more than 18 months.
(2) Let’s think for a second. There are about 40M people without health coverage in the US. Is it because they are REFUSING health coverage from their company? Come, now… And that does not even count the tens of millions who have an individual healthcare policy.
Another feature of the ACA was the removal of the lifetime benefit limits cap from all insurance policies, including employer-provided group coverage. I worked for a large corporation and the personal lifetime benefit was limited to $1 million. A million dollars can be run through quickly with many illnesses. People with diabetes likely have a much better chance of exceeding a limit like this. If the ACA is repealed, I expect that employer group coverage will also degrade to pre-ACA policies.
I’m just really not that worried about it… if they screw this up, the midterm elections are only 2 years away and we will see the pendulum swing back the other way (like we just saw occur.) if they improve the situation (one that we spend most of the time complaining about, so let’s not act like we’ve got some precious balance here at this moment and any changes would be so terrible) then they will improve their chances of remaining in power…
And if everything goes to $hit insulin is only $25 / vial at Walmart and strips are cheap too unless they’re in the insurance racket…
His Point #1: “we can buy drugs from canda”. Wrong: it is illegal. It is soemtimwes tolerated (i.e. not enforced), and sometimes not. In the past year, for isntance, Google paid a $500 MILLION FINE for letting Canadian pharmacies advertize. Does this make it look like it is reasonable to count on buying from Canada? And It is reasonable to offer a solution to millions of people that is illegal?
His Point #2 is right.
His Point #3 is wrong - discussed above.
His Point #4 is, imho, only covering COBRA, which means that (a) people must have been covered by an employee health plan, and it’s only good for 18 months. It does not apply to tens of millions of people (my guess is probably 100M US citizens, but someone my prove me wrong).
I have helped several people get insurance from such pools through volunteering in charity organizations. It varies by state, but, in the couple of states where I was exposed to it, the plans were horrible, with very high premiums, high deductibles, very poor benefits or all of them combined. And it is logical that they would be, since they group the highest risk customers. On top of that, you had to navigate a maze to be able to do it - which is why all these people at risk had to rely on volunteers like me to help them navigate it. This model did NOT work.
Sorry for the bit of passion here. I get hot under the collar when I see flagrant injustice and lack of charity for my fellow human being. And, btw, tomorrow this fellow human being could be me or you. Nobody should be forced to go without health insurance in this country.
EDIT: corrected my comments on point #4
it’s not that I am worried about myself, you know. We are very lucky to have had a good professional life, and we can afford to pay for my boy’s medicine and equipment as needed.
But I think of all the people who are not that lucky - or, worse, I read what some people write about not being able to afford even insulin - how can this be acceptable in our country, that some people have to choose between food and insulin?
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I don’t know one single person in real life who has ever had an individual healthcare policy… and I know a lot of people
Hmm, you and I must live in very different bubbles. I’m a writer, and I personally know at least two dozen people who are self-employed as freelancers. I know at least a few dozen more that are graphic designers or other creative professionals who buy Obamacare now. Add to that people who own small businesses (such as those working at small health clinics providing affordable health care) or work for small businesses, and I would estimate something like 10 to 25% of my Facebook friends are people who are currently enrolled in or benefiting from provisions in Obamacare. Also, please remember that according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data](https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat08.htm), between people who are working in the gig economy, people who are working less than 34 hours per week, and people looking for work, between 35 and 40 million people do not have access to employer-based healthcare. This is not a negligible proportion of the population. In fact, when my son was diagnosed I very seriously considered becoming freelance to better facilitate his care, so I see these people as “my people” to a very large extent.
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It is not acceptable, and should never be the case. I strongly believe however that the current policies are forcing more people into that situation than removing them from it. More people have coverage now than did 7 years ago-- yes. However insurance accross the spectrum had become less affordable and less beneficial. That’s not a good trade. We don’t have to destroy the whole system and make it essentially worthless in order to make it accessible for everyone.
You should explain to northwestpharmacy.com that what they’re doing is illegal because they seem to be pretty proud of it.
What I said about cobra coverage and group plans not excluding PCs is completely correct, and I specifically excluded individual plans from my description (in an attempt to answer the original question posed to me about changing jobs). Not really fair to characterize that as ‘wrong’