Obamacare premiums being refunded to customers....no really - they really are!

Sure they do! Just ask Don Diego about the results from his recent Socialist cancer treatments

There is no need to ask. DonDiego is happy to 'splain his thoughts on Socialist Medicine.
n.b.DonDiego wouldn't cite his experience in the Radiation Ward of his local private hospital as classic "socialism". He supposes pjstroh chose the term, because i. he equates Medicare to Socialism and ii. he likes Socialism. So DonDiego will play along.

DonDiego is content with the results of his radiation treatments to eliminate his prostate cancer last year. He retains, and might well expect to retain for years, some of the negative effects of such radiation treatments, such as less "regularity" and occasional fatigue, . . . but it's pr'bly better than allowing the cancer to consume his prostate and maybe metastasize elsewhere.


But DonDiego supposes pjstroh is more interested in the Governmental financial aspect of the treatment.

DonDiego was born in 1948; he worked part-time and began paying Social Security while in high school beginning in 1964; and he worked Summers in the Bethlehem Steel plant from 1967 through 1969. So poor old DonDiego has been contributing to Medicare since it became Law in 1965.

Once he began working full-time, . . .after college graduation and several years in the US Navy, . . . he has always participated in group-health-insurance plans, the premiums of which have been partly paid for by his employers and partly paid for by himself.

At the appropriate age of 65 DonDiego enrolled in Medicare. DonDiego maintained his group health insurance after retirement and still maintains it as a family policy chiefly to cover his lovely wife's medical expenses, as she is still shy of Medicare Age.


So in 2014 Medicare covered most of the expenses associated with his cancer treatments.
Did this benefit DonDiego? Of course, . . . but not as much as one might think.
Since Medicare is his primary insurance it covered most of the expenses, but this primarily benefited his group health insurer, as they would've had to pay most of the expenses otherwise. As it was the secondary insurer paid just about all of the expenses left over after Medicare was done paying, . . . so poor old DonDiego paid almost nothing out-of-pocket.
Had DonDiego not had Medicare most of his expenses would've been covered anyway.
And, in fact, had he not had the group health insurance, he would not have been accepted as a patient by his primary physician or his urologist. His cancer might have gone undetected altogether.


None of the above directly addresses CowboyKells objection to Socialism, . . . an objection with which DonDiego still concurs.

The primary objection has been expressed best by a Prime Minister of Great Britain.
". . . and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They [socialists] always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them."
__ Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, 5 February 1976

Medicare is, indeed, making a "financial mess". And it has been making a "financial mess" for quite some time.

"In 1967 the projected cost [of Medicare] by 1990 was $12 billion. The actual cost in 1990 was $110 billion."
"Last year [2014] the program cost $511 billion, and seven years from now it will double to more than $1 trillion, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. The latest projections from Medicare’s trustees, released this month, project that the program’s main trust fund, for hospital care, will be exhausted by 2030."
[It is typical of Government programs generally and socialist programs even more that costs are underestimated. Politicians don't like upsetting their constituents.
Nonetheless, eventually the money runs out, in this case by 2030; see Margaret Thatcher, above. - DD]

"Medicare has been dogged by fraud and other improper payments—$60 billion overall in fiscal 2014, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office."
[Fraud is typical of Government programs as well. Private companies need to watch costs and eliminate fraud for financial reasons, . . . the Government, not so much. - DD]

"To keep Medicare spending under control, payments to health-care providers by the program have consistently lagged behind those made by private insurers.
As a result nearly three in 10 seniors on Medicare struggle to find a primary-care doctor who will treat them, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. Another survey conducted by Jackson Healthcare, the health-care staffing company, found that 10% of the more than 2,000 physicians it surveyed don’t see Medicare patients at all."
[It is typical of Government programs, especially programs in which participation by the taxpayers is mandatory, to skimp on expenses by reducing payments to those providing the services; eventually those providing the services decide not to participate.
See DonDiego's experience cited above. DonDiego's primary physician and urologist would not have accepted him as a patient if he had not also had health insurance beyond Medicare. -DD]

Ref: The Wall Street Journal - 29 June 2015

The most important thing is you caught it in time and you can come on here and annoy the hell out of us. Just kidding. I am glad you are doing well.

I admire your work history DD. It appears there was not a lot of down time, very similar to myself, I had some form of income from the time I was 12 years old until I was 55.

I always wanted nice things and my father made it clear no millionaire was going to knock on the door and hand me a check. You have to get educated or learn a trade. I appreciate the come to Jesus meeting him and I had one day.

Once again the main thing is you are doing okay.

Cowboykell chose the word "socialism" to describe the affordable care act's laws regulating private insurance companies. And i believe DonDiego has used that same term more rhan a few times in that same context.

Everyone is free to have opinions about the ACA...but I got news for you: Medicare is far more socialist than anything the ACA implemented. And here is more news for you...there is not a private insurance company on the planet that would voluntarily be the primary insurance carrier of anyone DonDiego's age without a Socialist law forcing them to do so.

like Tutontow I am glad DonDiego is in full recovery mode after his socialist, government-paid medical procedure.

Anyone that fears socialist programs had better find another country to live in. Here are 75 socialist programs that have made the U.S. a better place to live. I know it comes from that horrible website but the facts are the facts. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/29/1078852/-75-Ways-Socialism-Has-Improved-America

Of course the biggest, most costly one is War.

Socialism is an economic system where the government owns or controls the means of production. This is opposed to Capitalism which is rooted in private ownership of business enterprises. Calling functions like the Military, Police, and Tax Collection 'Socialist Programs', is just wrong. It's the normal function of Government in a Democracy. There's nothing Socialist about it.

If you say you're a socialist, it doesn't mean you support having a police department or an army. It means you want the collective to substantially own or control the production and distribution of goods and services.

Just so; health care is one such service.

And so The Obamacare is not "socialism"; the Government does not "own" medical care performers or medical insurance providers. But in poor old DonDiego's opinion, it is way too involved.

Socialism by design is a champion of taking other peoples money to "provide services for the little guy". Well, not in practice.

Socialism in practice provides services that end up providing less and less to the average person as the money runs out. One can only tax the rich so much until the burden starts to hit the middle and lower classes. The rich with the ability of making policy, figures out ways of creating various loop holes to lower the overall tax burden while the middle class and lower end up paying more in taxes.