I read a bunch of stories about people who lost their health coverage, had to pay higher premiums, and otherwise got screwed by ObamaCare. I even saw a few liberal media pieces about how great it is, and how all of those stories are fake. Well, I finally got around to doing my own ObamaCare sign-up, and wow- it hurts- bad! In fact, it’s so ridiculous, I have only one choice that makes any sense- don’t buy any health insurance and just pay the penalty.
Here’s how it worked out for me and my family-
First, let me give you the back-story. There are three of us in my household. Me, my wife, and our 34-year-old son. We have a total income of $19,300 (from SSI, plus some website income.) We make too much money for her to qualify for Medicaid.
I am disabled. I hurt my back in 2010 (five herniated discs- my whole lumbar region), and haven’t been able to work since then. I get SSI (thank God), but it barely covers the bills.
My son is also disabled (severe head injury- double vision, limited intellect.)
My wife is the only one without any health coverage. She has diabetes, high blood pressure, and a herniated disk in her neck. We have been paying for her doctor visits and medication out-of-pocket. Thankfully, our local clinic has a sliding scale, so we pay a discount rate for everything- usually about $100 a month for generic medications. However, they warned us that their sliding scale would end under ObamaCare.
So, we went to the government website and attempted to sign up for ObamaCare. We began with an open mind, hopeful that we would qualify for some extra help since we are low income. But that wasn’t the case.
It turns out that the lowest priced health coverage they offered us was about a $400-a-month premium (for coverage that only covers 60% of the bill), a deductible of $5000, and a co-pay of $22.
Under even their lowest-priced plan, if nothing else in our health changes, our health care costs would go up from $100 a month to $400 a month, plus medications (about $100 a month.) In other words, we go from $100 a month currently, to $500 a month. All that, on $1600 a month income.
That’s about 30% of our income!
As it is, after we pay our bills, we’re lucky if we have $100 left. Oftentimes, we don’t even have gas money to go to the doctor. We thank Obama for those gas prices too.
See the attached photo which is an actual screenshot from healthcare.gov website. These were our only choices.
Affordable? I was doing better with NO health insurance. The sliding scale made it affordable, for real. It was affordable before ObamaCare. Now it’s totally unaffordable.
Update 3/24/2015: It appears I’m not the only one taking ObamaCare personally.
Ken Skaggs is an author, educator, entrepreneur, radio announcer, web designer, web marketer, musician, trucking safety expert, SEO specialist, and business owner- in other words, a dreamer.