Originally Posted by
Marcus Aurelius
I’ll relate my Obamacare experience and I’ll try to keep it succinct, but it’s not a short story. When I first bought a policy on the ACA exchange, it was a so-called Silver Policy, and it was admittedly the best insurance policy I had ever had in my life, and at a very affordable cost. I thought, “Wow, great! Maybe the government is actually going to do something good for its citizenry for a change.”
The next year, however, the premium went up by 150% and the deductible went up by $500 per person. That was a bad omen, but it was still tolerable. The next year, premiums and deductibles went up again, and I began receiving letters from the insurance company detailing downgrades to my policy. The next year, more of the same, except our insurer dropped out of the exchange and we had to get a new one, which our health network did not accept. So we did not get to keep our doctor. Also, I had to cancel our dental insurance in order to keep up with the rising costs of the medical insurance premiums.
That year, my wife had major surgery (with a bunch of hospital visits for transfusions leading up to it), and I was diagnosed with sleep apnea by way of several appointments with a cardiac clinic and two sleep studies. I was prescribed a CPAP machine. We are both well recovered now, so I can’t complain about our care – in fact I’m deeply grateful for everyone in the medical profession that helped us.
But then the insurance/penalty nightmare began. Our medical care was expensive, and our insurance policy (still a silver plan) didn’t do much to offset it. Fortunately, our health network is a not-for-profit outfit that offers generous financial aid. I applied for that, and we received a certain amount of aid according to our income, but I was still left with a hefty bill. I negotiated a payment plan with the hospital and our doctors, and managed to pay everything off within a year.
However, by this time, the insurance policy premium had gone up by 750%, the deductible was $5000 per person, and co-pays were $95! (If you didn’t have insurance, our clinic would charge you $50 to see a doctor, so it was actually cheaper to ask them not to file a claim for the visit.) In order to pay off our medical bills, I had to cancel our policy – there was no way around it. So I began accruing the penalties for not being insured. At the moment, I still owe the IRS $1400 for not having complete coverage throughout 2017, which I’m paying off at $200 per month, with interest and penalties attached monthly.
Once our medical bills were paid, I did get reinsured for about half a year, but that still proved to be a waste of money as the policy was essentially worthless. I canceled it yet again, and we are currently uninsured.
I generally support Trump, as much as anyone can reasonably support any fallible human leader, but I am not at all happy about the fact that if you didn’t have insurance during 2018, you still have to pay a penalty for that: 2.5% of your income. Are you all aware of that? The penalties don’t disappear until this year, 2019. So on top of the $1400 I have still to pay, I’m going to be assessed another chunk of several thousand dollars for not having insurance in 2018. There is no chance in hell I can afford any sort of health insurance while I'm paying the penalties for not having health insurance! This is Obama's legacy in my life.
Why didn’t Trump and the Republicans eliminate the penalties earlier than 2019? They’ve had several years to do it.
At any rate, I’m flushing less money down the toilet by paying the penalties than I would be paying for an exorbitant and useless insurance policy, but why do I have to flush any money down the toilet at all?
I have more to add, but this business makes me livid, and I need to calm down.
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