I had two cats with cancer.
I stopped counting after $20,000
Clearly he doesn’t go to the vet often. Or maybe has pet insurance.
Except the employer negotiated a volume discount, which the employer cannot do. While employees may be insensitive to the cost of employer provided healthcare, employers are not. My sense is this either drives up cost or reduces coverage.
You could take your voucher and join a group of people to get a volume discount. So, even more freedom, and freedom from your employers limited choices too…
What a fantastic idea. Or you could keep getting insurance through your employer’s negotiated plan.
That’s the system we have now… It caused lots of inflation.
I imagine a GOP based plan would be something like Universal Catastrophic Insurance with a deductible of 5k.
Could pay for it with a simple tax on employers and employees or a sales tax of a few cents, which would be better to make sure self employed folks have a way of getting covered as well.
That 5k could be then supplemented with private insurance much like Medicare advantage, which the insurance companies love. So they stay happy. Small businesses would be able to attract folks who need insurance and that means competition for labor, which boosts wages.
You could also allow HSAs for the first 5k, tax free. This would really help the self employed as well.
So let’s say a person develops cancer, which is clearly a catastrophic event. They pay the 5k deductible and then everything associated with that event is covered for the life of the patient? I just saw a tweet in which a guy was celebrating that his mom is now cancer-free after 7 years of treatments. Is the catastrophic plan going to pay for the treatments for 7 years?
Over 90 percent of all health care costs per year are under 5k. Catastrophic coverage wouldn’t be anywhere near as damaging as Medicare for all. Most Conservatives favor Catastrophic coverage as a matter of fiscal responsibility and were disappointed when the ACA basically killed it when mandating minimum coverage. HSAs were also a cornerstone of a Conservative approach to health insurance.
It’s a bare minimum but it protects against catastrophe, which is what insurance could be seen as representing.
As a Liberal I would want something more than this, but that is what I see a GOP plan being. Inexpensive, practical and helpful for all workers with everyone putting money in, not just businesses.
That’s interesting and all, but it didn’t answer my question. I suppose you might answer “Depends on the catastrophic policy that you purchased.”, which is fine, as you are simply stating what would be the Republicans preferred alternative.
However, I am still curious what these “catastrophic” plans will cover after the initial diagnosis and treatment. A friend of mine had a bad motorcycle accident a number of years ago. After the initial placement of a rod in his femur and plate on his tibia, he then years later required surgery to correct the angle of his femur at the hip, and also ligament repairs in his knee. Would a catastrophic plan cover the lingers effects of the catastrophic event? I somehow doubt it.
I think that would be the definition of catastrophic.
And for younger people, thats important. They don’t have chronic diseases for the most part but accidents happen and having some kind of insurance for such occasions is important.
How do we prevent the free-rider problem with moving to something like the catastrophic plans?
Well Trump just said a 7k deductible is a “disaster”…
Don’t know how 5k moves the needle on that statement.
He said he’s planning for a unveiling ahead of the 2020 election. It will be the equivalent of having Barr summarize the Mueller report. It will be light on details and heavy on the conclusion this is the best plan ever. After two more years of no meaningful healthcare legislation this might sound like a reasonable solution to those who still believe Trump is an honest broker of anything.
Well its a yearly deductible, not a lifetime one. You would still have to plug in 5k a year per person.
Across the board, that covers quite a bit. HSAs will help here, if you don’t spend 5k in a year the money rolls over tax free and the government never pays a penny except for the lost revenue on the HSA.
It also empowers patients to watch their costs and spend wisely, which will drive overall costs down.
Before the election? There will still be people who believe him.
I am not a Conservative, just postulating what a good Conservative plan would entail.
Catastrophic is just that. If 5k a year throws you into bankruptcy perhaps that is the role for something like Medicaid.
I do think that if you want to be smart about it, this 5k should not include preventative care, which should simply be covered 100%. Thats money well spent on the front end as it lowers costs significantly in the long term.
I don’t say this to be crass, but instead of $20,000 for pet healthcare, I’d spend a few hundred on a nice funeral. I don’t fault your choice if you can afford it, but that wouldn’t be my priority.
Did not mean to argue your proposal itself, was just highlighting how Trump’s mouth has written checks (and this one just in the last few days) that he can never hope to cash. They will never be able to reconcile the promises they make into a coherent plan… that isn’t all “socialismy”.
But you’d have to have a premium in conjunction with a $5k deductible. That’s what I’m talking about WRT the free-rider problem—you’d have people who are otherwise healthy at the time going without paying a premium and then bam, all of a sudden they are in need of care.
