More Obamacare BS
May 18, 2014 21:11:53 #
More obamacare BS, coming to a family near you.
May 18, 2014
Walking the Healthcare Insurance Tightrope
By Constance Jacobs
This months Harpers Index reports that 2,629 inmates in a Chicago county jail were successfully enrolled in Medicaid because of provisions contained in ObamaCare. Compared to the thousands of Americans who are scrambling to find affordable healthcare coverage for themselves and their families, it appears the inmates got the better deal.
ObamaCare has forced many people to make gutwrenching decisions about their healthcare insurance -- for the first time in their lives, some are faced with the possibility of becoming uninsured. Men and women in their late 50s and early 60s are hardest hit -- many cant afford to retire early, they are too young to enroll in Medicare and under the new law they are paying the highest premium cost because age is a factor that is nowused to set premium rates.
Income is another factor. Under the law, qualified low-income individuals and families receive substantial financial assistance with the cost of their monthly premium, while individuals earning more than $45,960 (400% of the federal poverty level) dont. Whether 60-year old single individuals earn$50,000, $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 or more, their monthly premium rate is the same and they are required to pay 100% of the cost. ObamaCares ban on pre-existing conditions may be a good idea, but linking age and income with premium rates is not.
As a single woman turning 60 later this year, the cheapest premium I could find on Covered California comes with a $535 monthly price tag. Even at that price, my doctors, who have been my medical security blanket since I was diagnosed with a chronic illness fifteen years ago, are not part of the plans coverage network. Although I have maintained good health over the years with minimal doctor visits and tests, I will be forced to select a more expensive healthcare plan at a monthly out-of-pocket cost of approximately $700, the equivalent of two car payments, if I want to keep my doctors. And as others are now discovering, I may still lose access to my doctors. Because Im not self-employed, I cant write off the high premium cost even though ObamaCare penalizes me at tax time if I dont maintain healthcare insurance. Using age and income to set premium rates has produced the same result that banning pre-existing conditions was supposed to eliminate -- thousands of uninsured people. Only now the uninsured are middle class individuals and families like me who cant afford their healthcare premium.
After crunching the numbers so often I know them by heart and spending countless sleepless nights agonizing what to do, I have become fatalistic about my options. I will purchase the cheapest plan that allows me to keep my doctors and then try to absorb the cost by severely cutting back on essentials, eliminating all nonessentials and hoping for the best. If I cant make ends meet and without other options, I will be forced to cancel my healthcare insurance and assume the risk of becoming uninsured for the first time in my life.
Ironically, ObamaCare has given me a new reason to celebrate turning 60. If I survive the next five years, I will be eligible for Medicare. Its hard to imagine how 20, 30 and 40-year olds with families and mortgages will fare as they face a decades-long uphill financial slog if this law is not repealed.
Despite White House claims otherwise, the reality is that only low-income people and inmates in county jails benefit under ObamaCare. People with high incomes were never concerned about the laws impact because they can afford the Cadillac plans and concierge medicine. Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats have betrayed a rapidly evaporating middle class by putting them into a healthcare straitjacket, while the Republicans inability to repeal the ObamaCare juggernaut and offer a viable alternative underscores the extent of disunity within the party. Both are guilty of sacrificing the public good for political calculus and advantage. This November the candidate who goes on record with the promise to repeal this nightmare law gets my vote. No other issue matters.
ObamaCare has heaped more hardship on a timorous American public already stumbling from a stagnant economy, a lack of job opportunities, an unsustainable national debt, and despair about the future. There was a time not too long ago when magazines would not have found it newsworthy to mention inmates in a county jail simply because they obtained healthcare insurance. Apparently, those of us caught in ObamaCares stranglehold and walking a healthcare insurance tightrope are not worth mentioning.
Constance Jacobs is a freelance writer living in Oakland, California.
May 18, 2014
Walking the Healthcare Insurance Tightrope
By Constance Jacobs
This months Harpers Index reports that 2,629 inmates in a Chicago county jail were successfully enrolled in Medicaid because of provisions contained in ObamaCare. Compared to the thousands of Americans who are scrambling to find affordable healthcare coverage for themselves and their families, it appears the inmates got the better deal.
ObamaCare has forced many people to make gutwrenching decisions about their healthcare insurance -- for the first time in their lives, some are faced with the possibility of becoming uninsured. Men and women in their late 50s and early 60s are hardest hit -- many cant afford to retire early, they are too young to enroll in Medicare and under the new law they are paying the highest premium cost because age is a factor that is nowused to set premium rates.
Income is another factor. Under the law, qualified low-income individuals and families receive substantial financial assistance with the cost of their monthly premium, while individuals earning more than $45,960 (400% of the federal poverty level) dont. Whether 60-year old single individuals earn$50,000, $60,000, $70,000, $80,000 or more, their monthly premium rate is the same and they are required to pay 100% of the cost. ObamaCares ban on pre-existing conditions may be a good idea, but linking age and income with premium rates is not.
As a single woman turning 60 later this year, the cheapest premium I could find on Covered California comes with a $535 monthly price tag. Even at that price, my doctors, who have been my medical security blanket since I was diagnosed with a chronic illness fifteen years ago, are not part of the plans coverage network. Although I have maintained good health over the years with minimal doctor visits and tests, I will be forced to select a more expensive healthcare plan at a monthly out-of-pocket cost of approximately $700, the equivalent of two car payments, if I want to keep my doctors. And as others are now discovering, I may still lose access to my doctors. Because Im not self-employed, I cant write off the high premium cost even though ObamaCare penalizes me at tax time if I dont maintain healthcare insurance. Using age and income to set premium rates has produced the same result that banning pre-existing conditions was supposed to eliminate -- thousands of uninsured people. Only now the uninsured are middle class individuals and families like me who cant afford their healthcare premium.
After crunching the numbers so often I know them by heart and spending countless sleepless nights agonizing what to do, I have become fatalistic about my options. I will purchase the cheapest plan that allows me to keep my doctors and then try to absorb the cost by severely cutting back on essentials, eliminating all nonessentials and hoping for the best. If I cant make ends meet and without other options, I will be forced to cancel my healthcare insurance and assume the risk of becoming uninsured for the first time in my life.
Ironically, ObamaCare has given me a new reason to celebrate turning 60. If I survive the next five years, I will be eligible for Medicare. Its hard to imagine how 20, 30 and 40-year olds with families and mortgages will fare as they face a decades-long uphill financial slog if this law is not repealed.
Despite White House claims otherwise, the reality is that only low-income people and inmates in county jails benefit under ObamaCare. People with high incomes were never concerned about the laws impact because they can afford the Cadillac plans and concierge medicine. Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats have betrayed a rapidly evaporating middle class by putting them into a healthcare straitjacket, while the Republicans inability to repeal the ObamaCare juggernaut and offer a viable alternative underscores the extent of disunity within the party. Both are guilty of sacrificing the public good for political calculus and advantage. This November the candidate who goes on record with the promise to repeal this nightmare law gets my vote. No other issue matters.
ObamaCare has heaped more hardship on a timorous American public already stumbling from a stagnant economy, a lack of job opportunities, an unsustainable national debt, and despair about the future. There was a time not too long ago when magazines would not have found it newsworthy to mention inmates in a county jail simply because they obtained healthcare insurance. Apparently, those of us caught in ObamaCares stranglehold and walking a healthcare insurance tightrope are not worth mentioning.
Constance Jacobs is a freelance writer living in Oakland, California.
May 18, 2014 21:16:15 #
SBW wrote:
More obamacare BS, coming to a family near you. br... (show quote)
It's the law, it's working despite the Koch brother's attempts to spread lies. The Repubs have to realize they lost (again) and accept it.
May 18, 2014 21:19:07 #
May 18, 2014 21:21:59 #
May 18, 2014 21:24:30 #
SBW wrote:
More obamacare BS, coming to a family near you. br... (show quote)
Those on the right are always talking about personal responsibility. When the time comes to take personal responsibility in the form obtaining health insurance well they just go ape shit don't they.
May 18, 2014 21:24:57 #
dirtpusher wrote:
how come massachusetts plan works and obamas don't mostly same plan.
Mass has dropped theirs and is going with ACA because it's just about the same thing, DP.
May 18, 2014 21:30:02 #
dljen wrote:
Mass has dropped theirs and is going with ACA because it's just about the same thing, DP.
that where obama care came from.. lol
some just don't get it. and don't wanna accept it. lol
May 18, 2014 21:34:29 #
There is a provision in the ACA that allows incarcerated individuals to be enrolled into health insurance exchanges as a means to lessen the burden on municipalities, counties and states to provide health care to inmates. This actually saves YOU tax dollars, since before the ACA to cost of inmate health care was paid by the local agency. Now it comes from a health
insurance exchange.
AND, Constance Jacobs is a freelance writer living in Oakland, California talking about a stagnating economy is laughable, given where she lives. There are over 25 major high rise construction projects in San Francisco alone. The Tech Sector is driving employment and wages higher than ever in California.
But, if your Masters the Kochs tell you to write doom and gloom, that is what you do.
insurance exchange.
AND, Constance Jacobs is a freelance writer living in Oakland, California talking about a stagnating economy is laughable, given where she lives. There are over 25 major high rise construction projects in San Francisco alone. The Tech Sector is driving employment and wages higher than ever in California.
But, if your Masters the Kochs tell you to write doom and gloom, that is what you do.
May 18, 2014 22:19:02 #
RixPix wrote:
Those on the right are always talking about personal responsibility. When the time comes to take personal responsibility in the form obtaining health insurance well they just go ape shit don't they.
The point is queenie, is that health care for a large segment of the population has now been made unaffordable. That is the point of the article but you are too stupid to see that.
May 18, 2014 22:20:27 #
rgrenaderphoto wrote:
There is a provision in the ACA that allows incarc... (show quote)
Everything you have just posted is a lie. You are retarded liar. Go peddle that garbage on your other retarded liberals.
May 18, 2014 22:21:11 #
rgrenaderphoto wrote:
There is a provision in the ACA that allows incarc... (show quote)
You lying pricks cannot stand facts can you?
May 18, 2014 22:21:53 #
dljen wrote:
Mass has dropped theirs and is going with ACA because it's just about the same thing, DP.
No stupid Mass has dropped their because it is not working.
May 18, 2014 22:23:01 #
dljen wrote:
It's the law, it's working despite the Koch brother's attempts to spread lies. The Repubs have to realize they lost (again) and accept it.
May 18, 2014 22:23:20 #
SBW wrote:
No stupid Mass has dropped their because it is not working.
MASS is a fine state, you shouldn't call it stupid.
May 18, 2014 22:23:44 #
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