The federal health reform law provided more than 400,000 Maine residents with preventive care last year, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
About 226,000 Mainers were among 54 million Americans who were able to access at least one new preventive service for free in 2011 through their private health insurance as a result of the Affordable Care Act, according to a press release.
Another 187,300 Maine residents with Medicare also received at least one free preventive benefit last year, including annual wellness visits. Nationally, 32.5 million Medicare beneficiaries received a free preventive benefit as a result of the law.
The federal health reform law requires many insurance plans to provide coverage without charging consumers for a variety of preventive health services, such as colonoscopies, Pap smears, mammograms and flu shots.
“54 million Americans who were able to access at least one new preventive service for free in 2011”
LOL… the services were “free”!!
I thought we outlawed involuntary servitude in this nation a long time ago…
At what cost? Nothing is for free! Can we really call this insurance anymore. Insurance is for risk management to protect against unexpected loss. The government, in it’s infinite wisdom, is pushing the price of “insurance” out of reach for many of us who trying to pay for it out of our own pockets.
That’s the point. Once you’ve been broken, they’ll roll out the new single payer proposals.
Thank you for noticing! You have restored my faith in the future of the US.
This is shameless Obama re-election PR. Hey everyone! Look at all the freebies Obama has given you! But all you folks out there who just saw your premiums increase this year better look VERY closely at what those “freebies” are costing you every week….Some of us are getting a very thorough and very expensive colonoscopy against our wills. Feel violated yet? You just wait as this health care overhaul keeps rolling along.
Have you seen Tim Sample’s pitch for colonoscopies? It’s a simple procedure that has prevented millions of premature deaths. When you get colon cancer that could have easily been prevented, the cost of your treatment will make the cost of the colonoscopy look like the cost of a bicycle compared to a Lexus. Doctors (not politicians) recommend that everyone over 50 have a colonoscopy. I’ve had two, and no, I don’t fell violated yet.
I am not questioning the value of colonoscopy screenings. I am questioning the value to society as a whole when the federal government mandates that insurance companies cover screenings.
Sure colonoscopies are great…but how does that give you a “right” to collectively pilfer your neighbors to pay for your supposedly “free” service?
Why does my life and my labor get confiscated so you can have a colonoscopy? I don’t ask you to pay for mine. Why do you force me to pay for yours? And how on earth do you feel that is a moral position?
“Pilfer” is the wrong word. We live in something called a “community.” Why does my life and labor get taxed to fill potholes, provide free fire protection to people who smoke in bed, or free reading material for those who choose to use the public library instead of bookstores? Preventive medicine is smart public policy, and every member of a community has an obligation to contribute a reasonable amount to the common good. We may differ on what constitutes “reasonable,” but you will pay more in the long run by not paying for prevention. Or do you want to see sick people turned away from emergency rooms?
Colonoscopies are neither simple, nor will they “prevent” colon cancer. Do not make false statements.
A colonoscopy takes less than an hour, and while the procedure itself does not prevent cancer, removal of small polyps detected by the procedure, which is routinely done within that same hour, most certainly does. I assumed that a reasonably intelligent reader could make the connection.
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If you are going to make that kind of post, you are under an obligation to state whether the polyps, which may not have been of significance at all, were found to be cancerous, or not.
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You are not substantiating your argument thegreatwandini. The premiums have averaged 20% per annum increase since 2001. The great health care bill you so much dislike and blame did not become law until 2010. Most of “Obamacare” won’t even take effect until after the elections. So, not only are you factually challenged, you probably collect some sort of government assistance. Or are very wealthy.
When I look at the costs of health insurance, I am looking back to the 1980s, not just what has been happening in the past ten years. I would love to offer stats, but I don’t have them on hand and I don’t have time right now to look it up. So I apologize for being general.
Obama’s health plan has been promised to lower insurance rates. So far, they have increased. I predict they will not decrease even when the full plan takes effect. I admit I might be wrong. We’ll talk in a year or so, okay?
I was thinking the same thing. They are not free, but are paid for with premiums for private insurance or taxes for medicaid. They are really referring to out of pocket expenses. Your insurance will now cover preventive care without deductibles.
Do we really know from where the numbers are being retrieved? They are being pulled out of a magician’s hat, as far as we know. The Obama-non-healthcare scam is a real and present danger to our state and country.
Really? My insurance company now pays for the annual mammogram. Since we are both over 50, two colonoscopies paid for by the insurance carrier. Those procedures in two years would have cost us $3500. If a family of four makes $60,000, they are not going to spend $3500 on something that doesn’t have immediate ramifications. Obviously you are very rich or don’t go to the doctor.
“My insurance company now pays for the annual mammogram”
LOL…ahhh, no they don’t, WE pay for your services via the cost of our insurance premiums. Of course, the insurance company is simply acting as a middle man removing and insultaing everyone from the real cost of healthcare services. This is precisely how a mammogram and two colonoscopies have risen in cost to $3500. We shouldn’t be looking to “insurance” to cover routine, preventative healthcare, we should be looking to get the insurance companies out of the preventative care process. Cut out the middle man and reduce the actual cost of preventative services. In the current format, the supposed health insurance companies are not providing insurance at all…they are just middle men, taking their cut as the money passes through their hands. Think about it, do you use your car insurance policy to get an oil change, or replace some tires? NO, the only time you use that policy is if something catastrophic and unexpected happens to your vehicle. Why should health insurance be any different? If car insurance companies were involved in covering oil changes and tire replacements, what do you think would happen to the cost of an oil change and the cost of tires? You know exactly what would happen…it’s already happened with healthcare.
Here is the deal. You and I pay $1500 per scoping, the insurance company pays less than half. Yet, the “cost” is what the premiums are based on, not the actual payout. Then the insurance companies segregate the demographics so they can price out the higher risk. In other words, so the taxpayer will have to pay for the well being of those that have been priced out of the market. Is a 59% increase in premiums reasonable? http://articles.latimes.com/2011/mar/01/business/la-fi-blue-shield-20110301
I like the car analogy, because you can also point out that everyone knows the car will run better and last longer and be safer if it has good tires and regular oil changes and checkups. But we don’t expect car insurance to pay for those things, even if we find ourselves unable to afford them. And most people find the money to pay for new tires and regular oil changes, and they wash and take care of their car rather than risk an accident or breakdown.
And some people decide that they can live without a car and find money for more important things. Too bad we can’t live without our health. Faulty analogy.
$3500 over the period of two years is less than $150 per month. Is it inconceivable that a family might attempt to budget for these expenses? What if that family were offered lower insurance premiums, and lower costs for procedures because they are paying the proivider directly? That is the world we used to live in. Health insurance was affordable on the average employer plan, and preventative procedures and tests, including regular doctor visits for a general checkup, were within the ability for the average person to pay for directly, if they budgeted for it.
Now basic preventative medicine is mandated to be covered by insurance companies, who have raised the premiums to cover the mandates and still maintain their profit, and health care costs have ballooned due to the presence of a third party paying the bill.
It may seem that you got a good deal on your procedures. But I suspect every one of us is getting a bad deal overall.
What’s inconceivable is that ALL, as in 100%, of families can budget for preventive services. You are speaking from ideology, not reality.
And you are saying that just because some families are not able to afford these services that NO family should have to afford them?
Of course you are not really saying that. And I know not every family can afford regular checkups. Government assistance should be reserved for those who can’t.
So, thegreatwandin, do you have health insurance? Health insurance has not been affordable since mid 200’s when Blue Cross and Anthem merged to become a for profit operation.
A relative of mine has been paying in excess of $14000 per year for family of 4 since 2007 for $5,000 deductible on a small business policy. How is that affordable? That is $7 per working hour on a 40 hour week.
Have all you naysayers posting here never heard the expression: “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”? You would rather someone with a preventable condition let it fester due to inability to pay until it becomes a catastrophic condition that costs hundreds of times as much to treat. Taxpayers will pay one way or the other — either the smart way, through decent preventive care that’s free to the consumer, or when the uninsured flood emergency rooms that were never intended as catch-alls for everyone denied basic medical services elsewhere.
An apt analogy would be: Let’s stop spending tax money fixing potholes until the roads are completely impassible. Then, and only then, we’ll build brand new roads at several hundred times the cost.
Screenings often pose more threats to health than the lack of them. Who does the screening, and at what level of training? Who interprets the results? Who is there for the follow-through?
Unless the medical professionals are fully qualified and knowledgeable, unnecessary exposures to radiation, and surgery can result, both of which are harmful.
People must desist in equating health “care” with health insurance.
I will agree with the last sentence. However, the rest is hyperbole. Isn’t that why there are license requirements for medical professionals?
I agree. And there are laws making it illegal to practice without a license, so Pointaway may want to think twice before dispensing bad advice in the form of a thinly disguised opinion.
Republicans/Teas cheering for the insurance companies. LOL! Guess we know who’s party those bigwig insurance men are contributing money to for elections/re-elections.
Free, I do not think so !!! At the cost of how many trillions in the red?????
An America that would choose NOT to provide healthcare for all its citizens would be a country that favored illness over health–a weak America.
That is the Republican dream for us–as a favor for the for-profit insurance companies that finance their campaigns.
I’m grateful to President Obama for the Affordable Care Act, and pray that one day America will have a single-payer national health insurance program.
All you conservatives ignore the truth:
It is cheaper to prevent a disease than to treat it.
These programs SAVE the taxpayer (that’s you) money.
But don’t let the facts interfere with your anti-Obama rants.
Americans spend $15,000 per capita for healthcare, yet 50 million people are uninsured. Canada spends about $7500 per capita, and over 98% are insured. To put it another way, there are more uninsured in the U.S. than the population of Canada, yet it costs each American $300 per week in diverted capital to support the health insurance companies.