NEWSMAX: …A family of four earning $75,000 will pay $7,125 in annual premiums and as much as $8,333 in co-pays and deductibles, according to a preliminary estimate by the Kaiser Family Foundation. A single 40-year-old earning $30,000 will pay $2,509 in premiums and as much as $3,125 in cost sharing. For a 60- year-old making $40,000, the amount will be $3,800 in premiums and up to $4,167 in out-of-pocket costs, according to Kaiser.
Those costs will come even as the government spends about $1.16 trillion over the next decade to expand coverage to 30 million uninsured people. The administration last week unveiled regulations to implement the ban on discriminating against those with preexisting conditions. Insurers would be limited to varying premiums by age, family size, geography and tobacco use.
To be sure, the costs will be far less than what many with preexisting conditions would pay in the absence of the overhaul. The law is also designed to reduce expenses for those who already have insurance because hospitals providing charitable care make up those costs by charging others more… (more)
EDITOR: If we are to have true health care reform, it will be two steps: The first, “Obama Care” which , although covering many more people and an improvement, will not solve the 18% of Gross National Product excessive cost. When that collapses, finally universal, single payer health care – perhaps ‘Medicare for Everyone’ – along the lines of the rest of the advanced (and not so advanced) economies of the world will be put in place. This may take twenty years and a near political revolution. Otherwise, the nation will sink into second class status, a real possibility, saddled down with health care and ‘defense’ costs.
The figures quoted above are actually considerably lower than what many full-time employees of major corporations operating in Lancaster County are already paying.
Amen to anonymous. My insurance with a major corporation cost me $6,000 a year out of pocket plus I must pay the first $5500 if I get sick. $11,000 if both my wire and I get sick. My employer kicks in $7000 annually. What the editor fails to note is the fact rationing will become a fact of life. Single payer healthcare is nothing more than a government run HMO and we all know how much we liked HMO’s.
EDITOR: Some people just love for ideological rather than factual reasons to pay out a third more money for 13th rated health care That’s a big part of our problem.