Do I have this right? If you remove the mandate...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

I don't have a doctor or health insurance so I go to the emergency room with chest pains (angina). The pain subsides in the E R room as angina often does but the attending physician orders a heart doppler which reveals a blockage. The ER physician says the threat is imminent but not immediate and I will need a bypass.

I then go home and buy a $300.00 a month policy that a health care insurance company is compelled to sell me to cover a two hundred thousand dollar surgery.

Even the Family guy can see the flaw in this. This is f--king nuts.

[ExciteBike66]

1. No No...

According to Paul Ryan, you would be charged an extra 30% on your policy, which means a whole $90 a month! If you had to pay $90 extra a month, you surely wouldn't want to buy a policy to cover that $200,000 operation. Right Dr. Paul Ryan? Right?

[livetohike]

2. Except you won't be able to buy a policy because you have a pre existing

condition. I think they removed that too, or they were talking about it yesterday. We are all screwed and the insurance companies win again.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. A rational actor would demand the surgery on the spot.

If the hospital refused their only alternative is to have him or her arrested for trespassing after warning if he or she doesn't leave. No hospital wants that kind of negative publicity, and if he is arrested the gubmint has to pay for the bypass because he or she becomes their charge while in custody.

[Justice]

16. Exactly right.

[BainsBane]

3. The more they screw around with these crazy scenarios

The more it becomes clear that allowing people to buy into medicare is the most logical solution. If the GOP is so big on choice, why not give people the choice to purchase medicare or a private plan?

[shenmue]

4. Awful

[former9thward]

6. You can do the same thing with Obamacare.

The exact same thing. Which is why both plans are doomed to failure. Which is why more and more insurance companies are fleeing Obamacare every year. Have you not noticed that?

[burnbaby]

10. ACA makes you

wait 30 days now before any operation. However, if you get hurt or sick you are covered immediately. Their reasoning for this is people were only buying insurance if they knew they needed an operation or rehab stuff and then dropping it.

If everyone signed up for insurance ACA would be fine. It's because of what I mentioned above that is draining the funds.

[former9thward]

18. Everyone is never going to sign up.

There are tens of millions uninsured and that will continue. The concept makes no economic sense which is why insurance companies are pulling out of it which will cause rates to rise rapidly for the remainder. It is a vicious circle without end.

[Tanuki]

12. You can only sign up during the ACA open enrollment period each year,

unless you have a defined "qualfying event" such as losing your job-based health plan, etc. An uninsured person cannot simply get bad news in the ER and go purchase an ACA plan at any given time. They would have to wait for the next open enrollment period. If someone in the OP's scenario went to the ER today, they would not have ACA coverage until January 2018 because they missed the deadline for this year. At least the ACA tried to mandate universal participation, in the interest of diversifying the,risk pool.

[former9thward]

19. The open enrollment is extended every year.

And still tens of millions ignore it. It makes no economic sense and will fail. You can't stop ocean tides and you can't stop people from doing what is in their economic interest.

[Uben]

7. This new bill is supposed to lower premiums by 10%

Well big fucking whoop, mine went up 60% last year alone! I had no claims other than yearly check-up. We are being sold down the river by the idiots that want that insurance campaign money. They don't give a damn about us, its all about them. It always is!
Until we take insurance companies out of the equation, healthcare will never be affordable. Single payer... nothing else will work

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. The new bill is supposed to raise premiums in the beginning by 20%

In ten years it is supposed to come down by 10%.

[mythology]

17. Under the ACA, insurance companies are required to spend at least 80% on members

That leaves 20% to pay for employees, infrastructure and profit (for those insurance companies that are for profit companies). The increase in your premiums isn't due to an insurance company wanting more money as they'd have to refund money. It's primarily driven by the increase in pharmacy costs as well as increased medical use.

Most of the rest of the industrialized world doesn't have single payer and they get by just fine.

[former9thward]

20. You are right.

Pharmacy costs are insane compared with the rest of the world and the rest of the world does not have the overweight problem to the extent we have. That causes most of the chronic diseases and other medical issues.

[Tanuki]

21. Other countries don't have insurance companies skimming multlimillionaire

CEO salaries off the top of patient care dollars. The ACA limits the insrance companies' tax write-off to the first $500k in CEO salary, but that would have been lifted under the AHCA. They admitted under committee questioning that an insurance company would be able to pay their CEO $100 million if they wanted to and write it all off.

[wishstar]

9. There is a limited yearly enrollment period, so person would have to wait to enroll

Under ACA, many people even with serious conditions didn't want to apply for "'Obamacare" despite the mandate, until absolutely necessary so they waited until they desperately needed medical care and then had to wait for enrollment period and for the insurance to take effect that following January. Often resulting in much more costly care than if they had gotten their conditions treated earlier. That is main reason insurance companies underestimated how much their premiums would have to be under ACA to be profitable, because people needed such costly services by the time they applied.

Insurance company lobbyists are steering the ACA replacement, so any replacement will have at least as limited an enrollment period each year, so if a person fails to enroll, they have to wait until the next yearly enrollment period plus suffer a lifetime 30% surcharge for delayed enrollment

[burnbaby]

11. there is a caveat with that

if you lose your insurance during the year you can sign up and get insurance like I post above. I did it

[wishstar]

13. Special enrollment exceptions though are only allowed through life changes, not gaming the system

If you change jobs causing lost coverage or getting married or having baby - special enrollment applies

[roamer65]

14. Single payor universal is the answer.

Your surgery simply would be scheduled and the problem fixed. No insurance BS involved.

[beachbum bob]

15. with new changes if they happen, nope..prexisting condition not covered

under current ACA, yes you could do this