Guess not. Looks like many hospitals aren’t offering discounted care even when they legitimately qualify.
It appears the Affordable Care Act is penalizing everyone, from those employed by private companies & offered group health insurance to those with no insurance.
It needs to go into the dust bin of history, and the sooner the better.
This seems like it has relatively little to do with the ACA and a lot to do with hospitals not following their own guidelines and patients not doing their due diligence to see what they qualify for.
Some say 20 million+ people would lose their insurance if the ACA went away. Is that acceptable, or should we figure out a way to keep those people insured first?
Not the only options of course. Good insurance was available to many before Obamacare not so much afterward.
Also there are lots of disadvantages to single payer. Huge tax increases(to those who actually pay fed taxes) long waiting for treatment and even rationed care.
Check it out with people who actually live under such systems.
Available to many, but not all. Preexisting conditions and whatnot. Also there is the problem of lifetime limits for insurance; so that 150k bill you get for emergency care, you may be on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars even after insurance (if they decide to) pays.
The increases in taxes is nothing in comparison to the outrageous, arbitrary prices of healthcare many people are forced to pay or die if they decline. Take a look at your local hospital’s chargemaster and ask them how they determined their prices.
Do you have medicare?
Because having a two-tiered system is absurd. Numerous states have already refused to expand medicaid.
Out of network costs is another ridiculous issue that has no business existing in 2019.
I’m wondering, too, how another patient earning less than 30K per year & in medical debt thought she could afford a home mortgage, but that’s another fish to fry.
Looks like the ACA as well as hospitals ignoring their own policies aren’t helping anyone pay their medical bills. If the ACA helped so many buy health insurance, why are there still a lot of uninsured?
First time home buyer programs exist where she lives. Why wouldn’t someone with a modest income want to own a home and build wealth through property at a time when the values of residences are skyrocketing? Not everyone pays an outrageous mortgage.
The hospital is ultimately responsible for not offering financial assistance. Nonprofit hospitals are notorious for being cheap; I believe I read in a Time magazine article that some of them only give 1% of their profit for charitable care.
Edit: here is the article