Natural News – by Jonathan Benson
Deductibles are soaring under Obamacare, and many U.S. hospitals are now attempting to collect medical payments before services are even rendered, according to new reports. The financial burden of medical care has increased so much as a result of Obamacare — just as predicted — that hospitals can now clearly see the writing on the wall: Many more people than ever before will be unwilling or unable to pay their medical bills.
According to CNN Money, Americans today are having to foot a much higher percentage of their medical bills than ever before due to ever-increasing deductibles. Five years ago, for instance, an individual, employer-sponsored policy had a deductible of just over $800. Today, that same policy carries a deductible of about $1,217, a rate more than 50 percent higher.
Similar increases have occurred for family plan deductibles, which the 2014 Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research & Educational Trust report says have increased by 31 percent overall. Since 2006, family plan deductibles have nearly doubled, jumping from an average of about $1,034 per family to $1,947.
Obamacare deductibles significantly higher than private coverage
For those who didn’t previously have healthcare coverage but now have Obamacare, the deductible sticker shock is even more substantial. Many lower-level enrollees, according to CNN Money, including those who signed up for “bronze” and “silver” plans, pay deductibles ranging anywhere from about $2,000 to upwards of $5,000.
“The bronze plans are scaring a lot of administrators because the patient liability is so large,” stated Debra Lowe, administrator director of revenue cycle at the Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State University, about the travesty of Obamacare deductibles. “Patients are unaware they have this high deductible.”
Since the consumer cost of Obamacare is so much higher than what is typical of private insurance, and because this cost is applied to some of the poorest members of society, many Obamacare patients are simply dodging their hospital bills. And these hospitals, in an attempt to recuperate at least some of the losses, are responding by attempting to bill patients early.
“We are trying to minimize the after-service bill shock and get them into financial assistance or some other program for more affordable care,” said Andy Scianimanico, vice president for revenue cycle at Northwestern Memorial HealthCare, the parent company of Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Obamacare enrollees having to take out loans to pay medical bills
The irony of Obamacare is that it has turned out to be anything but affordable. Deductible payments are so high, in some instances, that enrollees are actually having to take out loans to pay for medical treatments. Isn’t this scenario the type for which Obamacare was supposedly created to alleviate? Wasn’t the whole idea to make healthcare more accessible to the poor?
Obviously, this is not the case, no matter what the media pundits would have us all believe. Obamacare is pulling the noose tighter around the neck of our nation’s medical system, making it increasingly more difficult for this system to even function at a basic level. Consequently, heathcare providers are now treating all patients as if they are about to eat the meal without paying the bill, the medical equivalent of a restaurant dine-and-dash.
“[I]t’s far more difficult to get that $2,900 from an individual patient than it is from the Medicare program or from Blue Cross Blue Shield,” said Richard Gundling, vice president of the trade group Healthcare Financial Management Association.
A report by Gundling’s group states bluntly, “Today’s high deductibles are tomorrow’s bad debt.”
Sources for this article include:
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/053044_Obamacare_medical_treatment_hospital_bills.html#ixzz40uRjtwCq
This is news? About eight years ago I told a neighbor “Obamacare will result in higher insurance company profits, and higher healthcare costs”, simply because robbing the public is the only reason they “reform” anything.
Now I’m thinking that this was the intent of Obamacare. It’s now become easy as pie to deny healthcare to millions of poor people that they want dead anyway, but of course, all the wetbacks are covered by medicare.
Another successful Obama-attack on white, working Americans.
This has been going on long before Obamacare ever came to pass.
A co-worker at the hospital where I work, told me that a lien will be put on one’s home, vehicle, or other assets before an expensive treatment is administered, even if, and more likely if, you’re an employee. If you are an employee here and get sick or injured, you will not be treated well by this company, which went corporate roughly 8 years ago. The benefits, along with everything else, keep getting worse and worse.
Should you need to call this hospital for info on its financial services, just dial 1-800-UR-$ucked. Replace the $ with an F. Go ahead, dial it. You will only get a recorded message.
I’m sure there are many corporations and gov’t agencies that wish they had this number.
Sometimes, I do, too.
I cry for those people I warned about this but chose instead to give me that blank stare knowing they were thinking ‘who the hell does she think she is’……….well I don’t actually cry……just wait there is more to come with this abominable care
Sadly true, even the doctors I told.
Obamacare ….Enforced by the IRS.
International Raping Service.
I hope I get colon cancer.
So I can sht on these azzholes on the way out.
Be afraid. …..
People faced with death have nothing to lose.
That’s what we have now.
Be afraid. ….
Be very… afraid.
I’ve had colon cancer, not pretty, the pain is as bad as getting shot in the stomach with a hollow point round.
Here’s the deal, we have been given so much shit food to eat that our colon’s are now actually to big ( they weren’t designed to eat GMO or processed foods.). What’s happening is that the food is now digesting too long in our guts, causing cancer. Our colons are to long, therefore the waste stays there longer, causing tumors.
This is not written anywhere, it’s my own take, It’s not rocket science. Our large intestines are too big, they should be about nine inches shorter. (thats’ how much they took out of me, emergency room, doctor asked me how I wanted to handle it, I said, “get this shit out of me now”!) small melon sized tumor.
Never had chemo
This is only if your going to be eating a lot of shit food. If you eat grass all day, your intestines are just dandy.
Yeah I now sounds crazy and over the top. Just pray you never see blood after wiping your ass. Could be hemorrhoids (precursor to colon cancer), or could be full on, your fd,’ cancer.
What ever you do, don’t listen to your white coat doctors, see alternative doctors first.
Digger called it “rot gut”. It has to be difficult, and time consuming, to eat proper on the road.
I’ve had some “issues” and my diet was a major factor. As you well know now, Mark, you are what you eat.
Mark, I too have had experience with cancer…a couple of things that I do now since learning much is I take 1/4 tsp baking soda in water (any amount) two times per day and I take digestive enzymes….a doctor friend told me that is imperative with anyone who gets the cancer news…..we need the enzymes after the age of forty anyway as we are not producing them as we did when were young ……I us ‘NoBloat’ by Scitrition
I cured my own lung cancer about 7 years ago, mary.
It’s really quite simple…
http://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/big-pharmas-lies-exposed-cancer-is-curable/19239/
I believe it deserves to be renamed, “The Unaffordable, We Don’t Care Act.” Wallowing neck deep with insurance company hurdles, a boondoggle for the industry, reaping billions in profits while denying benefits to those unable to fend for themselves. Don’t it make you want to strangle that little F’N lizard? I makes me want to strangle every insurance whore I meet, it’s just their mentality, that’s all.
Get rid of the hedge funds, take all the money and create decent health care. Hedge funds are a criminal enterprise, health care is not, it’s like water, we need it to survive.
You’ve got the right idea, Mark. How on earth can we re-teach people how to eat for health, since that is a lost art. Our new normal (not so new; generations coming up now have never known anything BUT junk and processed foods) — people don’t know how to cook, don’t have time to cook, don’t see the need to make their own food so they know what’s in it. I know, it’s really hard and time consuming and especially if you travel. Our society sure doesn’t make it easy.
But the new normal is to eat crap all of your life, then take pills and have surgeries and rehab for what results from abusing your body. Think nothing of eating that “cream of something” soup in the can! And think nothing of taking this tiny, little pill for this or that symptom resulting from the crap you have been eating. Think nothing of drinking this neon orange liquid from this small bottle because you have no energy from the junk food! and think nothing of surgical organ removal, ah you can live without your (fill in the blank).
I think eating healthy and taking care of yourself must not be all that exciting, but debility is not all that sexy, either.
The only way — ONLY way — to health reform is to actually create wellness in the first place and not screw it up. Wouldn’t that be amazing if somehow we could all do this and put the insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, factory farms, chemical plants and white coats out of business.
Hi EE
I tell everybody to drink lots of bottled drinking water. In my line of work, eating properly cost money, and equates to lost time. Time is everything. Unfortunately, money trumps health in this business, hence the huge 190 percent turnover. People can’t deal with it. The health thing is just too great.
I know what’s going to happen to me because of this business i’m in, doesn’t bother me a bit. I made that decision years ago when I made a boat load of bad choices.
I rolled the dice and lost. Now it’s haul ass and never look back.
A used 43′ prevost motor home and a decent park to live in is my goal now. I’ve already had all the rest.
Hi Mark,
That sounds like a good plan. 🙂
Lots of people learn this stuff the hard way, others learn from witnessing the mistakes of others, I think no matter how we learn, we can help spread the word in some way, large or small.
I hope to go into old age healthy and see too many of my friends reaping what they’ve sown and not in a good way. But I hear you on the time it takes — being on the road is very hard on the body. I’m not on the road but I carry my lunch to work with me every day in a small cooler, and keep it simple to save on time. For me, an apple a day helps greatly, add that to the “drink plenty of bottled water” advice. 🙂 And I avoid all the junk everyone else here eats. I know there are ways around the difficulties in eating healthy, but the solution is different for each individual.
I wish you many long and happy, healthier years, Mark!
Clinics in Fla have been doing this for a while now.
Pay going in, get lousy care, pill pushers write prescriptions for new, untested drugs without patient consent, when you say no to the drug
they just insist you take it, they won’t write one for tested drugs you know work….and pay any difference due to testing again on your way out.
I just needed a simple antibiotic, instead I was poisoned with a drug
that has TWO black box warnings on it.
Good normal doctors are rare here, if there are any.
If you care about your health, if you need a prescription, you’re on your own here.
If no prescription is needed, you can find a holistic doctor.
“Good normal doctors are rare, if there are any.” Well, I’m here to tell you there ain’t. Just like “Peace Officers”, they’re extinct.
When..you get tired of that bullshit let me know.
I’ve got enough land here for you to park your trailer.
Just gotta deal with that indoor plumbing thing.
I’ve been crapping in a home depot bucket and pissing in bottles for a couple of years now.
Get down… bitches
Exit…271 on I-80
“… hospitals can now clearly see the writing on the wall: Many more people than ever before will be unwilling or unable to pay their medical bills.”
Good. The sooner those charlatans & killers go out of business, the better.
Pay up front for treatment?
Wow. Sounds just like healthcare in China. Truly sad.
from http://seqclinic.com/chinese_medicine.html:
“Historically, a Chinese Medicine doctor was paid a retainer to keep their patients healthy. If a patient became sick, the doctor would not be paid until the patient’s health returned. In a similar vein, a doctor that resorted to surgery was considered an inferior doctor. If he/she did their job correctly and helped their clients stay healthy, there would be no need to perform surgery…”
I’m not saying that’s the way it is done now (I have no idea) but I do very much like the model of paying a retainer to help keep a person healthy and not paying until/unless the person’s health returns. Why not?