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[NightmarePatrol]

Here's a summary of the healthcare reform changes that go into effect TODAY:

1. Those under 26 are covered by their parents' insurance.
2. Insurers cannot deny children under 19 with pre-existing conditions; for adults, this provision doesn't go into effect until 2014.
3. Insurers cannot drop the ill, and cannot search out an error in the application to deny coverage.
4. New plans issued must fully cover preventative services such as colonoscopies. This does not apply for grandfathered plans.
5. No lifetime or illness cap for benefits
6. More freedom in choosing a doctor. Pediatricians and OBGYN's are listed as family doctors, so no prior authorization is needed to make an appointment.Make $6795/mo Working Part Time from Home
7. Appeals are friendlier to the consumer. An insurer must keep paying claims until the issue is settled.
8. Insurers can't make treatment at an out-of-network emergency service provider more expensive.

Sure this legislation has polarized lots of groups and individuals, created movements to oust incumbents and a host of other things. The changes which go in to effect today seem pretty innocent - but there are many more changes coming soon...

[Jayhawk]

Well, there's 8 reasons right there why we must act with haste to repeal this horrible plan. Anything that's good for consumers cannot be good for this country.

However, i'm particularly intrigued by the part where you can make $6795/mo Working Part Time from Home. Tell me more.

[Lifetime]

Be careful how this is read into.... I heard a Doctor and Insurance Rep talk about the reforms.... it came out... you may want to read the fine print
 
One point brought out in question.... The reform does say
"1. Those under 26 are covered by their parents' insurance."
 
The HINKEY in this is... from what they discussed.... "True but only if the "child" is presently under the Parent's policy." There is NO provision to add them after the fact. I think we may find out there are more of these HINKEY provisions.
 
The Doctor has a very good practice and he said the average profit margin of most doctors is 4%. That being said, he is finding out that Insurance Companies are denying tests and treatments at an ever increasing rate. So now the Insurance Companies are denying tests and treatments they had previously approved... Sniff...snifff I smell something and am checking my shoes......
 
I think we are all in for a ride and having had meetings with my Congress People.... (Have two in our County)... one approve it and one didn't...both Dems. One knows how to plant trees and schrubs and the other...the one who voted NO... was part of the Clinton Admin and was involved in the Health Care Committees for "Bill". Now, if anyone of the two I had to guess came close to even reading the bill..I vote on the Past Clinton Advisor. The other didn'teven have a grasp on the total program we call sCHIP's here in PA.
 
I think we are in for a surprise...especially the younger adult....18-26 and the older adults... about 65 and older. Hmmmm I wonder which of these tend to vote?
 
I went through Sharpsville the other day and I saw a yard sign that hit me like an epiphany.... "I want the America back, that I grew up in." It has gotten to the point in my life, that I don't recognize this country anymore. It has changed that much. And don't tell me to leave.... I paid dearly, for the RIGHT to be here and yes..... even bitch about it. I think I am in my last "twenty" and fear for those in their first "twenty". I am not seeing it get any better for anyone but the elite.... Play the game of GLASS HALF FULL...GLASS HALF EMPTY...it won't matter.... grab the vaseline.

[Lifetime]

Interesting...
 
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/Obamacare-is-even-worse-than-critics-thought-960772-103571664.html

[NightmarePatrol]

This just came out minutes ago in the company email... heh heh

We will be making significant changes to our U.S. health care benefits for 2011.

As you know, health care is a topic of frequent and even national debate.  Over the last decade, the cost of health care has increased in the range of 8 - 10% per year. Our recent experience has exceeded this trend.  In 2009 our health care costs per employee rose 12%.   2010 is estimated to rise 17%.  This is due to steadily increasing prices for health services and increased need (higher claims) on the part of our associates for health services.

It is clear that we must act aggressively.  These cost increases are simply unsustainable, and our high claim experience suggests a level of health upon which we can and should improve. With this in mind, our program for 2011 will:

 

-       Emphasize wellness and prevention through programs paid for by the Company;

-       Increase your opportunities and incentives to measure and improve your health and also your usage of health care services, and

-       Provide you with Company paid coverage once you reach your out-of-pocket maximum.


Our design changes will encourage a more active approach to managing our personal health.  We will do our very best to minimize any financial impact to our associates, but it is clear that personal costs will have to increase for many of us.

Please stay tuned for upcoming communication regarding our new program for 2011.  I encourage you to work with our extended health care team to determine the steps you can take to better manage your health and your health care budget.

[lifefeedsonlife]

I'm on our Wellness Committee here at work. It's interesting, Our insurance actually does pay for some proactive stuff as it is - we're trying to develop more things.

[Jayhawk]

"I want the America back, that I grew up in."

I saw a great comeback to that line somewhere a while back. It included references to jim crow laws, crippling childhood diseases, technology, and the like.

Me? I simply miss the days when politics had gray and striking a compromise was not viewed as treason, or the days when it was faster to fly 300 miles than to drive it because the line wasn't being held up by your fellow passengers being strip-searched.

[CindyLouWho]

The "no lifetime or illness caps" is interesting.  I have seen many people go down hard financially over a serious, long-term illness or an injury that requires a long-term solution because their insurance capped out.  It's so sad because they come so far only to be cut off at the knees....to have their treatment end midstream.  Medicaid only pays for stuff that is absolutely necessary.  For example, an amputee can certainly get a new wheelchair paid for but not necessarily a nice prosthetic. It will all be very interesting.  Makes me very afraid to quit the job I have, as I carry the insurance through my employer for the entire family and it is pretty decent insurance (medical, dental and vision).......will a new employer have to make decent insurance available to me?

[Lifetime]

Look.... drip the used oil on that statement but....even you know full well what that statement means. AND the Laws were slowly being put into place to address societal and racial inequities which has NOTHING to do with the meaning of the Statement and though we didn't have a cure for cancer, I recall new and better as well as the roots of treatment of many diseases 50 years ago. Read the paper once in a while and you just might get the idea that maybe, just maybe.... we are NOW creating and exacerbating, a lot of those diseases that kill and mame... I recall Polio, tuberculosis, measles, mumps Chicken Pox being fought successfully even when I was a child. It seems we all of the sudden have diseases either unknown or at best...UNDISCOVERED now.... Hell when I was a kid I never heard of anyone allergic to peanuts.... Peanut Butter and Jelly or PBJ was a staple in all the households I knew. So.... to a point I think we are the purveyors of a lot of this in recent history. Maybe it is the food or even medication..... Fat, BMI, new allergies, questionable medications fed to our food supply as well as ourselves... Avandia coming to mind with Lawyers waiting in line to serve you if you used 80mg of Zocor ( Simvastatin). Aids, HIV, and another list of " NEW and IMPROVED" diseases not to mention OVER USE of the SIMPLE antibiotics. Now we use anti biotics that are borderline lethal to us becaus we are now getting "immune" to the ones we generously handed out. Right.... now we are trading past maladies for a plethora of new ones.
 
Technology.... Hmmm has plastic really changed all that much, cars look nothing like they did year one??? Internal Combustion, Electricity, even the Computer and the Nuclear Reactor was invented in the 30's and 40's. All we are doing is "fine tuning" unless you call cloning NEW. I think the research was old but has been shelved for ethical reasons. Some of the life saving technics that surgeons use ...even today were experiments under the Third Reich and the likes of Mengela. I am not patting them on the back but sometimes when someone acts like the early 20th century was our DARK AGES, I have to wonder if they even heard of Nicholi Tesla (No college there) and those who were already involved in the sciences and Technology we enjoy today as just a fact of life... TV, wireless, space travel.... NOT NEW.... JUST IMPROVED. If you want to learn about Computers... look up the father of modern Computer Language... COBOL... created in 1959. I seem to recall people scrambling like ants when they thought Y2K was going to kill our Computer systems. Let's see...that was what 1999-2000. Well most of our SECURITY MAIN FRAMES still used COBOL. They had to hunt down existing "Old Timers" who were still familiar with it. I am not from the age of Alley Oop..Hmmmm do you know him??? But sometimes what you think is a step to the better can be twice as bad.
 
So turn on your lights the basic way they have ( shy of the LOL Clapper) ..drive your car basic design in the late 1800-early 1900's. And how is that bicycle... skates and... house doors... radios.. Improved...yes.... but basics are still the concept and implimentation. 
 
My point to begin with was.... a simpler life...not hit with a tsunami of daily crap. Politics was corrupt ...even than but we didn't know about the dallying or read about it after the politcian was dead, not still serving. Hell...there are many who could have cared less about the Lip Service Clinton got if technology in media didn't allow for almost a blow by blow account in close to real time LOL. Kennedy did Marilyn and Johnson bought Texas radio Stations in a questionable manner... Eisenhower did one of his military secretaries and we won't go into the FDR Family... But..it wasn't front page news at the time they were our officials. Now we worry if the POTUS doesn't go to church... yup... technology, how did we ever live without it... I miss Susie Side Saddle, Chilly Billy, and Saturday Cartoons... hmmm Mighty Mouse, Popeye, well you get my drift. Life has gotten complicated.... and it hits our lifestyle, pocketbook, health, education, and just plain PRIORITIES in life. GRAY is your word and it fits today better than ever before. There is always something to be said of the KISS Principal.
 
So Yes.... I want that America back when daily life was a lot simpler and we understood priorities better. Jerry Rubin said... "Don't trust anyone over thirty." but eventually he turned 30 and saw a whole new world before he died in 1994 at 56. I wonder if he liked that one any better???
 
 ALL IMHO
 
 
 

"I want the America back, that I grew up in."

I saw a great comeback to that line somewhere a while back. It included references to jim crow laws, crippling childhood diseases, technology, and the like.

Me? I simply miss the days when politics had gray and striking a compromise was not viewed as treason, or the days when it was faster to fly 300 miles than to drive it because the line wasn't being held up by your fellow passengers being strip-searched.

[Lifetime]

Oh...did anyone happen to notice front page above the fold HERALD today??? Medication prices rising for Medicare patients... And it begins .... double digit

[Amidala]

LIfetime, move to a third world country. Life will be simpler there. You may regular power outages and not have clean water but life will be simpler.

[Lifetime]

Another clown... You really don't understand me? This is MY country... I paid to live here and again... have the right to remark without someone shooting pablum about "move if you don't like it." I have lived in 3rd world ..even primitive.... if I wanted that, I would have stayed there. When I grew up I had "REGULAR POWER AND CLEAN WATER" That occured here where I still live and I didn't worry about eating a raw egg or even a "cannibal sandwich" once in a while. We lived in a world that we were responsible for our own BS... and not giving attorneys a job to make us money because our kid fell on some elses property and cut his knee. We actually watched out for each other and all the MOMs and DADs in our neighborhood were OUR Moms and Dads. When we did something wrong and were scolded by a friend's parents...when our parents found out..after a phone call...we got it again ..at home. We respected. Now your own kids can have you arrested for a spank. Now a neighbor calls the police if your dog craps on their yard instead of talking. Now when you leave town... you turn on your alarm and tell no one, for fear you come home to an empty house. We use to leave a key with a neighbor and called a few times to see if all was ok...the mail taken in as well as the paper. That , my friend, is what I mean by a simpler life..... We knew our neighbors and trusted them with our children and our homes.... Not so much anymore.... The Police use to actually walk through my neighborhood and checked the neighbors...young and the elderly. We knew them by name and they knew us and our routine. Now the police buzz through in a car and if not on their way to an " incident" stop in our neighborhood to answer one. Our court system is a swinging door and no kid that I know even fears George Junior Republic.... LOL they even removed the fences and gates... Hell, many kids today don't even respect the Police or the Firemen, let alone a teacher..... I just look at the parents.... Oaks and acorns. Some things are just plain wrong.
 
So, I don't know your life and you don't know mine. I make an honest opinion and, on autopilot, you tell me to move. and you know nothing about me and my life or even my family... Wow... I wish I could make decisions as fast as you. Be well ...My Friend..
 

LIfetime, move to a third world country. Life will be simpler there. You may regular power outages and not have clean water but life will be simpler.

[Lifetime]

again...  now we make the choice....
 

...or one could just stay put...and do nothing...and then the Third World Country...may just come to them... ...simpler... ...

[OL FATTY]

Ol Fatty and the wife gets our perscriptions for $2.50 for generac and $5.00 for the top shelf stuff. Also I get all my diabetes supplies for free. All from AARP/United Healthcare. It serves us well. Check my spelling if you care to? Who gives a sh...!

[OL FATTY]

Just to add something else. We don't pay anything for our suppliment coverage thru AARP/United Healthcare or our Medicare. $10.00 doctor co pay, 30.00 specilist co pay, and $50.00 emergency room co pay. I'm happy with my health care coverage. How's everyone else doin?