California health care exchange prices substantially lower than today's prices

you can go on http://www.ehealthinsurance.com/ right now and compare there plans to the Obamacare exchange plans




You can see in many places premiums will double under Obamacare.

 

HMMMM....

 

Using advertisement claims as a point of comparison is like going to clutchfans and asking if rockets are better than team X. Those numbers might be true but it is difficult to believe a statistical analysis that you know is definitely biased.

 

The problems with the apples-to-oranges argument is that the plans are different. Yes, if you compare a catastrophic coverage plan with an Obamacare plan, price go up - but you also get far more coverage. The analysis done by California compared similar plans - so if you get the same general coverage, the prices won't be higher under Obamacare.

So yes, prices will go up thanks to increased quality of insurance (and an argument can be made that people shouldn't be required to get better insurance). But prices won't go up for the same coverage - which is the argument that the right has been trying to make for years. They are just simply shifting their argument now that their original one doesn't appear to be true in California.

 

Did you guys see the infographic with the prices for various medical examinations and therapies in the US compared to the rest of the world?



http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/h...-health-expenditures.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

No but would love to!

 

Sorry, I edited my post (with source: it was in the NY Times, not in Forbes).

 

FREE MARKET FTW!

 

Are you saying that the countries the USA are being compared to are communist?

 

How else can we build all those shiny buildings, sponsor sports teams and pay big salaries that in part pay down large amounts of student debts?

Just another bubble that bursts the day govt steps in with price controls on the non Medicare crowd. Till then, bankrupting people and bending insurance carriers over has it's pros.

 

Interesting. I admittedly didn't read the article, but what's causing this? e.g., the Lipitor cost in New Zealand. Lipitor is a drug created by Pfizer, a US company. Is NZ simply subsidizing the cost of the drug through taxpayer funding? How are they able to charge that much less?

 

I didn't check the article's sources, but I assume they were not actually comparing the brand name products, but the brand name product with a generic product (which makes the infographic somewhat incorrect).

 

Ok, so that could explain it -- if NZ has a shorter schedule than the US to allow Lipitor to go generic. That would start up the age-old debate regarding how much innovation would be reduced if drug companies make fewer profits off their patented drugs. In effect the US consumer (or whichever countries have longer patent schedules) is subsidizing the NZ consumer's drugs, and also funding innovation of new drugs.

Another explanation could be taxpayer-funded subsidies in NZ, which I believe is a worthless analysis unless you take into account the amount the taxpayer is paying. Need to look at the full life cycle.

 

You guys might be interested in this data:

http://www.oecd.org/els/health-systems/oecdhealthdata2012-frequentlyrequesteddata.htm

USA far "ahead" in healthcare spending as % of GDP - approaching 20 %.

I am interested in this field as I co-founded a startup in the digital healthcare space. I recently attended a couple of conferences in the USA because of this.

 

No, not tax subsidies. It's price controls.

 

I'm not surprised the US is so high on healthcare spending. While people bemoan some of the screwed up parts of our healthcare system (like poor people's access to care), the bottom line is that if you have money in the US, you can get access to the top tier of doctors and medical care in the world. The US also is the source of a good chunk of the world's drug innovation and procedural innovation.

 

provide a link, please. I think what you're trying to suggest is that Pfizer simply offers the drug to NZ consumers at a cheaper price? Evidence?

 

I'm suggesting that countries create an agency that clears all drugs for insurance coverage and they leverage their customer base against the pharma companies. When the price is too high they simply won't agree to cover it so customers have to pay full price for the drugs. I know in Canada they have rules to determine acceptable pricing of drugs and rules on raising prices on drugs. Selling drugs at a smaller profit to millions of customers is better than not selling any drugs.

 

It sounds like that's exactly what happens in New Zealand.


New Zealand's Drug-Price Controls In U.S. Crosshairs... Again

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_...s-drug-price-controls-in-us-crosshairs-again/

The drug companies -- and the senators they've paid off -- want New Zealand to weaken the country's national drug buying agency, Pharmac, which has long kept prices down in the antipodes.

In New Zealand's national healthcare system, the government pays for any medicine that Pharmac approves, and bargains a price for those drugs. New Zealanders make only a small copay when receiving their prescriptions; the rest is paid for out of general taxation.

The problem for the drug industry is that Pharmac often concludes that some drugs aren't worth the extra cost and declines to cover them. New Zealanders are still permitted to buy them, but they must pay full price. Having created a cheap healthcare system that covers everyone, New Zealanders are not eager to swap it for an expensive one in which only some people are covered.