There are certain things that bind all tax paying, productive, working, American citizens. Perhaps the foremost of these is healthcare insurance. Given the costs when one faces a catastrophic health issue, we are all required to prioritize health insurance as a necessity of living in the United States of America in 2025.
And since the system has been set up, the way we are delivered health insurance through our employment, our health insurance costs, and delivery system has even become a consideration in evaluating our careers.
Most who pay for health insurance for their families may have the ability to pick and choose, since both spouses are employed, and so there are two plans from which to choose. You and the wife can discuss which job offer better coverage, or drug costs, or deductibles, and select the plan that best fits the family need.
But then again, some of us have had “that discussion” of changing employment, or having one spouse consider changing employment, and the dreaded discussion begins, “oh, but what about our healthcare”. Because the spouse thinking of making a change is the one providing the family healthcare through their job. And now a change means a change in providers, pre-existing condition issues, a new start to paying into deductibles, a change in employment can be dictated by the health insurance decision. Especially for those with costly preconditions, who do not wish to “upset the apple cart” of present day delivered services. If you have diabetes, or have had cancer, or some other potential life-threatening condition, you are forced to think twice, even three times, before making a change in employment that might alter the care you are receiving, or could receive, for this pre-condition.
So in the reality of being a family in America in 2025, with two working parents, a pair of children, and building a life together here in America, the subject of health insurance, and the delivery of health insurance to your family, can become paramount in a host of other decisions, employment being first and foremost.
Perhaps you’ve known someone who kept a job they didn’t feel was optimal, or a job they really didn’t want to continue, but they couldn’t disconnect from the health insurance, that single issue was the determining factor in employment.
Which brings me to the subject that prompted this column, and is part of the debate raging in our Congress, and said to be the determining factor of the present day government shut-down and budget fight.
Provisions in Obamacare are set to expire, and conjoined with this issue is the fact that some Blue states wish to offer free healthcare to illegals. And since money is fungible, the Federal government is subsidizing these payments. Indirectly. California offers free healthcare to all illegal citizens, and it is billed through a California program, but subsequently half those dollars are reimbursed through Medicaid, a Federal program. In effect, all of us are paying Federal taxes that end up being funneled through Medicaid, and for those dollars sent to California, the Federal taxpayer ends up paying for half the cost of illegals gaining healthcare in California.
Lawmakers on the Democrat side can dance around this provision in a bill, and that provision in another section of the bill, but it is readily evident that Federal dollars are subsidizing illegals getting healthcare. The proof is that California hasn’t gone bankrupt from the crazy idea to give illegals free healthcare.
Fungible. An important concept. This is how dollars earmarked for building a high speed rail service from Los Angeles to San Francisco end up building a high speed rail service to nowhere. Unless you were only intending to go a quarter mile. That money allocated for high speed rail being fungible, ended up elsewhere.
We humans are an interesting breed. We can hear a phrase, or utterance on the television, and have a natural inclination to nod our heads in agreement with information that in reality we abhor.
I had such a moment yesterday with the current rather vocal disagreement on the government shut down over, well, basically healthcare costs. Sure the Democrats want to jam a laundry list of other pork projects into their version of a new budget, but the basic disagreement is centered on continuing Obamacare with the Covid era subsidizations, and the fact that some Republicans in Congress have realized that all of us are funding illegals getting healthcare in California.
I found myself hearing a Democrat talking on the television about a dramatic increase in the costs of healthcare for some American families, in some case having premiums double, and there I was on my computer, listening second hand, and nodding in agreement. “Damn right”! We are tired of our health premiums going up, and deductibles that mean nothing they’ve become so high.
I sat nearby the television listening second-hand, and found myself agreeing with the talking head Democrat. Whaa?
And then it hit me.
They aren’t talking about my premiums, and if you are a family that had healthcare well before Obamacare was implemented, they aren’t talking about your premiums.
You see, all of our healthcare premiums have gone up, and up, and into insanity since they passed Obamacare, and the deductibles have too. From roughly a grand per person to over twenty-five-hundred per person for the deductible. At that rate the insurance company isn’t paying for regular healthcare, you have to pay all the costs. All the insurance is doing is covering catastrophic, hospital related costs. The regular visits, the broken finger visits, the broken wrist or ankle visits, with all those you still don’t hit the deductible.
I realized, after I stopped reading the computer, and listened to the Democrat talking heads on television speaking about premiums doubling, and families losing their healthcare completely, that the people they were talking about were the ones on Obamacare, the people that glommed onto the system cheaply, or for “free”, that have gamed the system and caused all of our premiums and deductibles to explode!
And I realized, “hey, these Democrats aren’t talking about me, and my families increased costs, caused by Obamacare.”
No.
They are talking about all those who dialed up Obamacare who never had health insurance before, never prioritized health insurance for their families, and who are getting my level of very costly health insurance coverage for either “free”, or so heavily subsidized by my tax money that if the subsidy is left to expire their premiums will double.
In other words, they will have to begin to pay the real cost of their healthcare. And won’t be on the government tit for a freebie, or subsidy any longer.
It becomes easy to hear a politician say that it isn’t “fair” the Republicans are going to let laws change and see struggling families either lose their healthcare, or have premiums double.
Until you realize they aren’t paying any of their own money for the service, or they are paying a quarter of the cost for the services that you are paying full price to get for your own family.
Uh, is that fair?
I pay full price to have healthcare for my family, but you get some big government subsidy, or are poor and clog the valuable healthcare system up getting “free”?
Excuse me, I don’t mean to sound harsh, or callous, or uncaring, but enough!
Pay for your own God Damned healthcare. Whatever the premiums. And if you can’t afford them, get another job. Prioritize your life.
People who have no car have no choice but to live near the bus lines. We don’t subsidize them to get a car.
Yes, it is sad they have to dictate their lives by the bus schedule because they cannot afford a car, the car repair, the gas, the insurance. A car provides “freedom” that having to take public transportation does not.
And if you have a job that is too long a walk from home, then your living options become rather abbreviated due to being forced to live near public transportation. You need to live near the bus line, or subway, or light rail. Sad, but true.
The same idea needs to apply to healthcare. Healthcare is priority one in the family. Before owning a car, before new clothes, before entertainment, before the big screen television, healthcare insurance is an absolute must, especially for a family.
I realize a healthy twenty-one year old male in prime health may not feel he needs to spend on his health care, but with the rate of car accidents, and accidents in general, it is imperative that everyone budget for healthcare.
Which does not include budgeting by getting our government to either subsidize your healthcare, or pay for it in total.
Sorry, if you are poor, you better find some way, any way, to purchase healthcare, because just like being condemned to live near public transportation, that is the hand life has dealt you.
We, society, the working taxpayer, we cannot afford our health insurance, and your health insurance too.
We are seeing the fruits of that today.
Since Covid and government expansion of Medicaid and Medicare programs, and subsidies, everyone’s health care has become unaffordable.
Everyones health care, all of us.
Even before Obamacare I said to anyone who would listen that this is all simple math.
You have 100 people paying for healthcare. They are happy with their insurance, and services. Now we add 40 people into the system who can’t pay. Now we have 140 people taxing the system for healthcare, but we still have only 100 paying.
And somehow people bought into Obama saying crap like “if you like your health insurance, you can keep your health insurance”, and “insurance premiums won’t rise due to Obamacare, because it will cause synergies”.
Who believed that crap? Are Liberal brain dead?
Two huge issues.
First, the system itself could only handle the 100 with insurance who were paying. The number of doctors, hospitals, and nurses in America is finite. Adding people into the system does not automatically increase the number of doctors, hospitals, and nurses.
We have a long process of certification to add new doctors and new nurses. You can’t just build new hospitals overnight.
You can’t tax a system created for 100 patients, and with Obamacare providing free and subsidized healthcare overnight add 40 patients.
And second, and this is the most important issue, 100 people cannot continue to pay the same premium, and hold the same deductible, and in actuality cover 140 people.
That has been now shown in our increased premiums and deductibles to be true.
Because that is exactly what we are all living through. Right now.
We 100 used to have health insurance. It wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t this awful.
Then Obamacare forced 40 added people into the system for “Free”, or close to “Free”.
And the reaction of the health insurance system was to get the original 100, hello, that is you, and me, to now pay more to cover the cost of the new 40 on the roles.
So when you hear these idiot politicians, these Democrats, cry, cry, cry, about healthcare premiums doubling, don’t make the mistake if thinking, yeah, my premiums have gone up, and up, and up, I can’t have them doubling, those Democrats are actually correct.
No, no, no.
Think, well, if you’ve been getting sixteen hundred dollars worth of healthcare for only eight hundred a month because all of us taxpayers have been subsidizing your family to the tune of eight hundred a month, and we cannot afford that any longer, please find a way to pay for that yourself. Any way you can.
The Democrats, as usual, are crying, crying, crying, over yet another new entitlement program they created, that might go away.
We can’t afford new entitlements. Obamacare has to go, and so do the changes made during Covid to give away even more tax dollars.
Obamacare was and is an abomination written by insurance companies to enrich themselves at taxpayer expense. Which we all knew, or should have known the day that idiot Nancy Pelosi said “we have to pass this bill to know what is in it”.
And no, you didn’t get to keep your doctor. Gasp, Obama lied. And knew he was lying when he said it. Yes, Obama, Saint Obama, the chocolate Jesus, he knowingly lied to us all.
Dear government, Dear fellow Americans, the more you subsidize something, the more of it you get. The more our government subsidizes Americans healthcare, the more who are going to apply and game the system, costing us all more, and more, and more.
At twenty-five hundred deductibles per person, per year, I don’t know how much higher it can go though, as unless you have some awful health issue happen, you have no way of getting to twenty-five hundred a year with just normal maintenance. Meaning, the insurance part you are paying for never gets paid out by the insurance company.
Next time you find yourself nodding in agreement with a Democrat, stop, think.
Just as Obama lied, and lied knowingly, so does every Democratic politician alive.
Tried to tell people Obamacare would not work but they bought the lies.
omg lol this was so me! you can keep your doctor