Swing States poll: Women push Romney into lead

I can tell you that elimination of the copay for an annual exam isn't going to motivate me to go to the doctor more often than it did before. I've had that benefit for awhile and the last time I went to see the doctor was probably something like 5 years ago, if not longer. Perhaps if the Congress were to levy a tax on my failure to go to the doctor to be examined once a year my behavior might change, but I suppose that that would also depend on the amount I would be taxed for failing to go for my legislatively mandated once a year exam. You understand that the benefit you envision is entirely dependent on people like me altering my current behavior, right? That the imagined benefit of providing contraception with no additional out of pocket expense is dependent on said contraception being taken in accordance with the directions, right?

Voluntary chemical sterilization (contraception) comes with its own set of medical risks, that is why they are prescriptive and not simply available over the counter. And while I most wholeheartedly agree that when used to treat a medical dysfunction that they should be a covered expense, where their use is elective in nature it is quite appropriate for that expense to be excluded from coverage just as other elective medications and treatments, lasik as an example, are excluded from coverage.

What I actually want is a market based solution to the cost problem rather than a government mandated one which prevents an extinct model from being abandoned, which is what the Democrats have put into place. Creative destruction of outdated products, along with competition for customers, are perhaps the best parts of capitalism. It is what drives innovation of new products and services and drives down the cost of purchasing them. Government didn't need to require Lasik procedures to be a covered expense in order for the cost of the procedure to drop or to advance the technology that is used. I would even make the argument that if it was a government mandated covered expense that the cost would have continued to escalate instead of decline as it did.

Yes, spending $10 a month for contraception is less expensive than the cost of raising a child is. That's a pretty good argument for someone interested in pursuing the pleasure of the sexual experience for themselves to spend the $10 a month it is going to cost to significantly reduce the likelihood that they are going to wind up spending a significantly greater sum to raise the child that their elective behavior created. Participation, both in the sexual act and the chemical sterilization of one's self, is and will remain an entirely voluntary act regardless of who is picking up the bill for the chemical sterilization. You are still going to wind up with an excessive amount of unintended pregnancies unless you are also willing to require by federal mandate and taxation that anyone not intending to have a child chemically sterilize themselves until they intend to create their own mini-mes.

Is that the next step? To tax people who do become pregnant who didn't chemically sterilize themselves when they seek an abortion to negate the consequences of their elective behavior? Sure, you can get your abortion, but there is a tax to be paid in addition to the cost of the abortion because you didn't chemically sterilize yourself before choosing to be sexually active? Unless you are willing to take that next step the benefits you imagine are going to remain exactly that - imagined.

Birth control pills cost $15 to $50 a month. An exam to get them costs $35 to $250.

That is not preventative medicine....you get an MRI when you have some symptoms....you get a colonoscopy, or mammogram, or prostate test, or cholesterol screening when there are no symptoms, to detect serious health issues for which there may be no symptoms. Its a whole different issue.

Raees wrote: Birth control pills cost $15 to $50 a month. An exam to get them costs $35 to $250.

And thanks to the federal government, I get to pay that amount in additional premiums, plus profit margin, to cover the additional expense that the insurance company is going to experience as a result of the law. It is in effect no different than levying a tax on my wages so that the government can provide chemical sterilization at no additional expense to anyone who desires to have it for purely elective reasons.

PrintSmith wrote: I can tell you that elimination of the copay for an annual exam isn't going to motivate me to go to the doctor more often than it did before. I've had that benefit for awhile and the last time I went to see the doctor was probably something like 5 years ago, if not longer.

Just because you don't care to take advantage of a life saving, and cost cutting, benefit....that is not a reason to deny it to others who may be wiser and care more about preventing those serious diseases that devastate individuals and families. Some serious diseases can be detected by something as simple as a yearly urinalysis. Covered by insurance, low cost, and detects, for one thing, bladder cancer, a common cancer in older men that when caught early is completely curable.
if left to go on until symptoms are apparent can be fatal, or life changing and expensive to treat.

Anyone over the age of 40 who does not have at least a yearly physical shows very poor judgement in my opinion and puts themselves and their family at risk for heartbreak and huge emotional and maybe financial cost. Mr archer did not have health insurance when I met him....I asked for him to do that for me before we married....get health insurance and have a yearly exam....I wanted it because I loved him and didn't want to lose him...he did it because he loves me.

archer wrote: Poor Fluke...she has been accused of so much that isn't true. All she asked for was to have her insurance policy cover contraception....like insurance policies have always done except when religion gets in the mix. Why should the religion of the administration of her university get to dictate what insurance coverage she is allowed?

I have very personal reasons for believing in preventive medicine. My private insurance policy did not cover colonoscopies for routine screening. because I was high risk for complications from the procedure...my cost to have one would have been well over $5000...so I made the mistake of waiting, even though my doctor thought everyone should be screened starting at age 50. I had no symptoms that would cause me concern and convince me to pay for it on my own, or make it eligible for insurance coverage. And so, when the insurance company decided to cover the procedure, I had one immediately. Sure enough,
I had a cancerous tumor that had been growing for years. The cost to cover my cancer treatments was over $200,000, money the insurance company could have saved if they had covered the screening even a few years earlier. Not to mention saving me the enormous emotional anguish and physical pain.

Preventive medicine makes good sense...both for our health and for the cost of health care. Early detection saves lives AND money.....why is it such an issue with conservatives that we spend money up front to save much, much, more money down the road?

I had my colonoscopy at age 47 when I had serious symptoms that pointed to the colon as a problem. My doctors says that colon cancer is no longer an after 50 probem, it is happening more to younger people. So do we then have insurance companies cover the 5k pricetag on people over 40 and then down the road at age 30... even if it saved just one life? How can insurance companies stay in business if evrybody and their mother has a 3-5k colonoscopy once they reach a certain age... without raising rates substantially?

My point is, why is your colonoscopy $5,000 anyway? Do you really believe that cost is justified? Instead of forcing insurance companies to pay for more and more proceedures, why not find out why the proceedures are so high in the first place? I'm no cheerleader for insurance companies, but I understand math. I understand that insurance companies take on our health risks for a price, just like auto insurance. If I buy a Bently or a Ferrari, shouldn't I expect my premium to skyrocket due to the cost of the parts and service if it gets wrecked? If an insurance company has a growing list of proceedures and medications they are forced to cover, premiums will go up... nothing is free, nor show it be.

If Obamacare focused on bringing a $5,000 colonoscopy down to $500 or even $1000, I'd be all for it. But sadly, it ignores the fundamental causes these ridiculous costs and thinks the insurance companies can somehow cover more and more without increasing premiums to unbearable levels.

Maybe I'm missing something, but in the last two years, my bills have totalled over $800, 000 which were paid by my insurance company... my portion with premiums and deductables for my family of five was less than $30,000. I'd say the insurance company got the short end of the stick in my case. But is the $800,000 that was paid really as good as we can do? Reminds me of the government paying $900 a piece for hammers... and nobody cares why the price tag is so high because it's paid for by taxpayers.

I am more representative of the typical citizen than you care to realize archer. That is why I say that the benefits you imagine will result from the ACA are exactly that - imaginary. My wife is no different from myself. My brothers and sisters (except for the one who married a family physician) are no different either. They take their kids to the doctor once a year, but they themselves do not go.

My wife didn't have insurance when we first met either and I kept asking her to fix that oversight as well. She now has insurance that she uses when she is feeling under the weather, and only then, just like me. In the last 25 years I have probably been to see a doctor less than 10 times. I went when I needed stitches for a cut, I saw a doctor when the paramedics thought I should be flown to the hospital after an elevator fell on me (funny story that one, remind me to tell it someday). I went to see the doctor when I had a nosebleed that lasted for a couple of hours. I went to the emergency room when I injured my ankle playing keeper during a co-ed soccer match and again, family physician and then a specialist, when it started bothering me 3 years later. I went to the doctor when I had a flexor problem in one of my fingers and to a specialist to have it taken care of. I had an annual physical a few years back (won't say how many) when I turned 40. That's about all I can remember. I don't know what my blood type is, haven't a clue what my cholesterol level is or my blood pressure for that matter.

If you think I am atypical, you'd better think again. The majority of the people I know are just like me and a majority of the ones that aren't used to be before they had a serious medical problem of one sort or another. I know of perhaps a handful of people who go to the doctor at least once a year for an annual checkup. I don't expect that to change for myself or anyone I know - nearly all of them have had insurance for years and the only change the ACA will bring to their lives is how much more their insurance premiums are going to be increasing above and beyond what they would have otherwise going forward.

Heisenberg, most colonoscopies, when covered by insurance are less than $1000 to the ins company. When a person pays out of pocket because they have no insurance...or insurance won't cover it...they are about $2000, or were then. For me, I had to have it done in a hospital, under general anesthesia, with an anesthesiologist present and an assistant to the doctor because a particular condition made it a high risk procedure for me. But even $2000 is enough to convince people not to have it done without insurance,

I am not concerned with what you do PrintSmith, or you family, or the people you know....you are free to use the benefits of insurance or not. I do care, though, that those who want to take responsibility for their health and that of their family have the ability to do so without going broke. I agree that healthcare costs are too high in this country, but not providing preventative medicine to people who want it isn't going to bring costs down. More likely it will raise it as people wait till they are sick to go get checked out.

The majority of the people are going to wait until that day regardless of whether they have insurance or not archer, that is the entire point. Unless you take away their freedom to use the benefits that accompany the insurance in the same manner that their freedom to purchase insurance has been taken away from them your imagined benefits of requiring everyone to be taxed to provide insurance, whether the tax is paid to the insurance company or the federal government, will remain just that - imagined.

To gain the benefit you imagine will require that not only everyone be taxed to provide the insurance, but that everyone be required to use the benefits of the insurance that they were taxed to provide or face additional tax levies for failing to use those benefits.