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not sure how prev posts to 'news' get sorted and filed into the archives, but stumbled upon this one whilst rummaging round in the back, as it were:
http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...Care-anecdotes
and added the following:
in ref to comments re med ins rates increasing _ahead_ of obamacare...
not sure where/how this one will pop back up (into the news section on frontpage/top-level doc?
anyway - while i think kaiser represents what the future ought to look like, far as medical 'insurance' goes: where the subscriber pays the provider _directly_ thereby bypassing the 'insurance' corporate middleman (and their CEO's million/billion dollar bonuses) and 'profits' and manic-obsessive need to 'make the quarterly numbers' to keep the stock price high enuf to justify the corp bonuses (based upon how many people thay can screw out of/deny coverage to) - i really have become recently disillusioned with what has been happening with my kaiser coverage - over the past several years, along with substantial rate increases above the stated inflation rate, there has been a similarly steady rate of degradation of the covered benefits: higher rates (copays) for daily hospitalization, now upto 400/day with no maximum (from NO daily copays for in-hospital stays prev); prescription copays doubling the year before to 30bux; never noticed as my copay for diagnostic imaging went from 10% to 50% until i had to have a ctscan a few years ago and the phreakin copay was 1500??!!!
then this past year, the out of pocket max (total supplemental charges) went from 3000 to 4000 (up from 2500 a few years back)
all of this has me greatly concerned that what is happening is that the large groups (in this case, the state (HI), city/county workforce, mostly, but others too) is forcing kaiser and perhaps other HMO's in diff states, to cost shift from the groups to us individual members - because we have no pricing/bargaining clout, with which to command better rates????
anybody else see same sitch developing?
http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthr...Care-anecdotes
and added the following:
in ref to comments re med ins rates increasing _ahead_ of obamacare...
Originally posted by jpetr48
anyway - while i think kaiser represents what the future ought to look like, far as medical 'insurance' goes: where the subscriber pays the provider _directly_ thereby bypassing the 'insurance' corporate middleman (and their CEO's million/billion dollar bonuses) and 'profits' and manic-obsessive need to 'make the quarterly numbers' to keep the stock price high enuf to justify the corp bonuses (based upon how many people thay can screw out of/deny coverage to) - i really have become recently disillusioned with what has been happening with my kaiser coverage - over the past several years, along with substantial rate increases above the stated inflation rate, there has been a similarly steady rate of degradation of the covered benefits: higher rates (copays) for daily hospitalization, now upto 400/day with no maximum (from NO daily copays for in-hospital stays prev); prescription copays doubling the year before to 30bux; never noticed as my copay for diagnostic imaging went from 10% to 50% until i had to have a ctscan a few years ago and the phreakin copay was 1500??!!!
then this past year, the out of pocket max (total supplemental charges) went from 3000 to 4000 (up from 2500 a few years back)
all of this has me greatly concerned that what is happening is that the large groups (in this case, the state (HI), city/county workforce, mostly, but others too) is forcing kaiser and perhaps other HMO's in diff states, to cost shift from the groups to us individual members - because we have no pricing/bargaining clout, with which to command better rates????
anybody else see same sitch developing?
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