Supreme Court Ruling Obamacare Upheld

randford

New member
I'm on BCBSGa and the premiums are killing me. But now what? Will Georgia opt out without penalty from the feds? It appears at this moment that they can. Georgia wants to create a regional pool of all southeastern states, outside of Obamacare.
Then there are health insurance exchanges through the affordable health care act. This is all very confusing. What's the better bet? What's to become of private health care? Will govenment subsidized health care be the best choice for Cf patients?
If anyone out there has an idea about what choices CF patients should take, let us all know!
Thanks,
Ranford (49, DF-508, P140S, Osteo) <a href="http://www.randysnider.com/">www.randysnider.com</a>
 
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kgfrompa

Guest
I think it is going to take some time to see what options we have.I for one went so long with out any health care I now have Medicaid and am very grateful.But I hope everyone can be covered in some way or another.To be sick is horrible to be sick and have no insurance is dauting.I relize it is going to mean cuts and change but with pre excisting CF No one would ever pick me up on insurance as it is now!
 

randford

New member
I know what youmean. If I lose my coverage, I'm uninsurable as any other CF patient. It's terrible how the health insurance companies keep raising premiums and limiting coverage. But it is by default their fudiciary responsibilty to shareholders to be profitable. That's the problem. That and medical malpractice law suits.
Ultimately, if we could limit taxation on premiums, limit tort reform and allow portablilty so that we can buy insurance products in any state, it would help everone in the mix.
Let's hope for the best outcome for all people, including CF patients to get affordable health care.
Randford
 

shannon28

New member
When I lost health insurance through my employer, we couldn't find any private insurance we could afford that would accept my daughter's asthma. I can't imagine what the premium costs would be with my son's CF. I think options are important, and we'll have to wait to see how this plays out.
 

Printer

Active member
Kids cannot be refused, or premiums adjusted upwards, For kids. Under 14 I think. 2014 for the rest of us.
 

randford

New member
<strong>shannon28,</strong>
You just described what many people have had to experience, the loss of a job and employer-subsidized health insurance. The same thing happened to me. I kept my insurance without dealing with COBRA but even with that, I considered upping my deductible just to keep the premium costs down but just one serious CF issue and I would owe a lot of money.
I do hope you get coverage or have it already. Your daughter is so young and will need to best of care. The fortunate thing for her is that there are treatments that will soon be available for all gene combinations beyond the G551D gene. Kalydeco is a positive step toward that and she will live a long life. I wish you all the best.
 

randford

New member
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote><i>Originally posted by: <b>Printer</b></i> Kids cannot be refused, or premiums adjusted upwards, For kids. Under 14 I think. 2014 for the rest of us.</end quote>
Wow Printer! You're my hero! You're 72 years old! Man, that's so inspiring!!! I was diagnosed at 42. I'm pushing 50. I've had unexplainable problems for years until diagnosed. I'm Delta F 508heterozygous with P140S (a raremutation). My nephew, Randy was diagnosed at 3 and passed away at 15. He was homozygous Delta F 508.
I'm so proud for you that you've made it this far. I sure hope I do!!! Hang in there and tell us how you beat the odds!!!
Say, what doesT5 variant and MAC mean?
 

Printer

Active member
Randy:

I wish that I had the secret. Im not the oldest with CF, I understand the registry shows someone 83. The clinic that I go to has 3 patients over 70.

Mac is microbacturium atriam complex. One more infection. Google it T5 variant makes V562I more potent (as I understand)
 

randford

New member
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote><i>Originally posted by: <b>Printer</b></i> Randy: I wish that I had the secret. Im not the oldest with CF, I understand the registry shows someone 83. The clinic that I go to has 3 patients over 70. Mac is microbacturium atriam complex. One more infection. Google it T5 variant makes V562I more potent (as I understand)</end quote>
Well you have inspired me today, my friend. You're an inspiration to us all. You make me feel like a can make it a little longer.You make me want to fight harder. And my battle is nothing like many of the younger folks with CF. So there is no reasonfor me tocomplain...just fighton and inspire as you have!!! Thank you sir!
 

Tisha

New member
I really hope you guys get free healthcare once and for all! From the European point of view, I cannot even imagine how you can manage with paying for medication. If you see it from my side, it's like this: regular wages in Spain: 1500 euros a month (= tight budget just to cover housing, food and regular expenses). My medication when I'm healthy has a price of 3000 euros a month (ie, had I to pay for it, NO WAY I could do it!). Over the past year, I've been hospitalized or with extra treatment 12 times. Without free healthcare, I'd be dead long time ago! "Free" for a freelancer (ie, not hired) like me, means 258 euros a month. It's a very good deal for anybody who is sick or could possibly be sick some time in their life! That's why I feel so confused when seeing in the news that some Americans are opposed to free healthcare. I can only imagine those opposed are either rich and don't care about the middle/lower class, or are healthy and believe they will always be healthy.
In any case, my heart's best wishes go out to you and I hope nobody with CF will have issues with receiving the treatments they need!!
 

randford

New member
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote><i>Originally posted by: <b>Tisha</b></i> I really hope you guys get free healthcare once and for all! From the European point of view, I cannot even imagine how you can manage with paying for medication. If you see it from my side, it's like this: regular wages in Spain: 1500 euros a month (= tight budget just to cover housing, food and regular expenses). My medication when I'm healthy has a price of 3000 euros a month (ie, had I to pay for it, NO WAY I could do it!). Over the past year, I've been hospitalized or with extra treatment 12 times. Without free healthcare, I'd be dead long time ago! "Free" for a freelancer (ie, not hired) like me, means 258 euros a month. It's a very good deal for anybody who is sick or could possibly be sick some time in their life! That's why I feel so confused when seeing in the news that some Americans are opposed to free healthcare. I can only imagine those opposed are either rich and don't care about the middle/lower class, or are healthy and believe they will always be healthy. In any case, my heart's best wishes go out to you and I hope nobody with CF will have issues with receiving the treatments they need!!</end quote>
Trisha, A lot of us are in that postition and any assistance would be welcome. This type of senario is probably best for CF patients. Parents and individuals simply cannot afford all the treatments and medications. I've held off on treatments and medications.Even when I'm offered assistance through some CF programs, I turn it down because those resources are finite and are needed for the younger people with CF. But it does come to a pointwhere it becomes overwhelming. I'm not there yet but I know what's coming. I admire your tenacity and do hope you stay in good health.
 
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all4Eden

Guest
You need to read this healthcare bill and look at the Canadian and European. Understand that this president along with his entourage, has a very heavy socialist agenda. To my understanding, the middle class is going to get hit hard. Especially after 2015. 1st phase of this bill is already hitting my wallet. My copay went up, medicine went up, Eden's treatment went up. Some medicine that either her or my wife is not covered by my insurance. The best thing for us to do is pray, pray and pray some more.
 

jbrandyn

New member
Ifg your insurance went up it is because your insurance company made that decision in order to make more money before it becomes illegal to gouge prices on the disabled. I have read the entire bill... it took while. It is solid legislation, complete will all the partisan crap you could hope for, but it is a good bill and a good first step in making healthcare available to all Americans.
The next logical step will be to make profiting from research very limited and probably put it all back into universities and non-profit research institutes so pharma companies will just be the means of production. That would bring prices down and fund education! YAY.

Most American people do not understand the European systems ( there are many, many Euro models) and honestly there are parts of it that Americans cannot wrap their heads around because of all the lies and vitriol they have heard about it, as well it clashes with a few social myths we have about America and our presumed level of equality. Canada's system is easy to understand, but people fail to remember that Canada is very spread out so access is harder for a lot of people and they do not have the buying power of a nation the size of the US so they really are not a good analogy for what a single payor system would look like in the states.

It is really the size and availability of health care infrastructure that would make a universal system so good in the US. Upper class areas would not need to build more, and public energies could go into building infrastructure in poorer and middle class areas. As well having a universal system would drop prices because the US would (still) control the health care market and thus have incredible power to sway prices. As it stands we have that power, but in a lot of entities. For instance Medicaid and Medicare are good at controlling prices because they have the teeth of the government, Kaiser is good at it too because they have so many people enrolled. A universal system would essentially give the American people the power to demand fair and non-gouged prices. Plus it would expand coverage to al ot of people who do not have healthcare because they are poor, especially populations of people of color would benefit.

Sorry I kind of nerded-out right there.... It is an exciting time for policy analysis indeed!
 

robert321

New member
The big problem in all of this is "who is going to pay for drug development?" Its a business just like anything else and it must make money or it will not do the work. Yes there is a problem but cutting the money out from under the pharmaceutical companies is not the solution. Strong arming the price down will only result in a screeching halt to drug development such as kalydeco and the other vertex studies, but yes your tobi will be cheaper.
Drug research in universities is based on grad students wanting to go into pharmaceuticals to do for-profit research. If there isn't for-profit research, there isn't university research, leaving only organizations like the cff to fund the research and whatever can be acquired from the government, if anything.
I don't understand how people think that the solution to a problem such as this is to turn it over to a government who can't manage keep the postal system in the black, has a perpetual social security system with an expiration date, is trillions of dollars in debt without a solution, etc. The government has tried its hand at healthcare, ask a veteran about his VA health coverage and tricare insurance and you won't be so optimistic
 

jbrandyn

New member
On TB- My docs boiled it down to Cfers being less likely to contract it because we have so much in our lungs anyway and are doing a lot of preventative care. Since TB happens a lot in bad environments or to populations lacking preventative care we are just less likely to get it.

ON healthcare- the current system of research is rather new, the university and non profit based system in use around the world and in the US long ago was taken over by Pharma companies who got research docs by offering bigger salaries thus raising the price of drugs, and when these companies go public they have a shareholder burden to bear. For something like health care research to be for profit just adds to the expenses the since have to pay. I even asked my doc who worked on Kalydeco if she thought that non for profits could do it, she said yes. Obviously there would be differences in funding mechanisms, but research would still happen. Earth science and social science research is a good analogy to biotech research, it does alot of research and gets good results. There is also the philosophical argument that the money our government puts into subsidizing research should not go to for profit companies.

Government run healthcare is a whole other issue. Any good policy analsyst will tell you that the government is one of the best tools for being in charge of healthcare and social safety nets. The notion that Social security has an expiration date is true only if you think that nothing will be done about it in the next 50 years. Experience tells us other wise. Really if you tune out of the cable news networks and spend some quality time on good policy sites, the Center on public policy and budget is good, as it the ford or rand foundations, you see that we are not in the dire straits that media likes to paint for us. Yes the economy sucks, but it can get better. The same goes for healthcare and education.

The debt we have really is not an issue, governments have the ability to create capital because money does not really exist, not even in gold. Ultimately the economy is a measure of how our society if functioning, at times like this it is important to support welfare programs and keep individuals and communities from falling into poverty and lift those who have up so they can be more productive. I know it sounds cliche, but implementing austerity measures, especially the "welfare reform" or anything pushed by Rep Ryan is like starving a hungry person and expecting them to get better. To control the debt we need to do a better job of regulating income inequality and redistributing wealth so that poorer communities can get out of the safety net. Other countries do it, we don't because we have very differing ideologies within our country. There is also the fact the the budget deficit has a lot to do with us not wanting to pass taxes. As much as it sucks taxes are good, they pay for things we need to be a functioning society, however they have not grown in proportion to wealth and then with these wars adding to costs. It is an easy fix, it is just gonna be weird for us to do.

I have talked to vets and there are some aspects of tricare which are horrible, the DOD doesnt want to spend money keeping people alive, it is against their nature. The VA is horribly underfunded, but that is the problem the funding is not there. There is alot of skill employed at the VA and Tricare, they just do not have the funding to run it as best they can. This is especially true in regards to mental health where there is the bare minimum of funding. However some of the vets I talk too are starting to like the reforms recently put in place and they love tricare. A lot of the stories about vets coming back from Vietnam and even the first part of Iraq/Afghanistan do not apply anymore. Other government heal programs, SCHiP, Medicaid, and Medicare run very well, they are suffering from budget cuts. So please do not doubt the government's ability to run a program, they do it quite well. Anyway the benefits out weigh the costs on ACA.

Perhaps the biggest change that will have to happen is in how much we let people lie to us under the first amendment so that we can make good reasonable choices, be able to see the horrible levels of inequality in the US, see how others try to manipulate the middle class into voting against itself and keep us from being so emotional about things that we cant actually get anything done, instead of being bombarded with bad news programs, meaningless political scandal, and political commercials creating huge fears out of non issues. In all I believe that working towards a public solution rather than a private one and holding the health of our society above profit is important for us to thrive as a nation.

Best wishes.
 
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