Thank G-d for Obamacare Because You Never Know
Updated at the Bottom
For the past few years, I have written extensively about the Affordable Care Act. Like here. And here. I’ve interviewed Secretary Sebelius about the act. I’ve served as the press pooler in the Oval Office in a meeting about the act.
When I wrote all those posts, I was laughably lucky. Living a pretty comfortable middle class life with cushy insurance.
And now I’m on Obamacare.
Thank G-d.
I mean, really, thank G-d. If it didn’t exist, we wouldn’t have insurance at all. Not with the astronomical cost of insurance for the unemployed.
Back when I wrote those posts and mentioned how you never know when you will run into a catastrophic health event, I didn’t even think about how much this health care law would also become meaningful when you’re out of work. I mean, who expects to be jobless in the future when they have a nice, stable job? But that’s the point: you support these things, even when you don’t personally need it because there are people out there who do. And then it is there for you when the tables turn and now you are the person in need. Acts of government that protect vulnerable citizens: it’s a good thing.
When I see people whining about their tax dollars going to help others or their government making laws that ensure that all Americans have access to basic necessities like health care, all I think is, “I really hope your life doesn’t change at all. I hope no random event forces you out of your comfortable bubble.” Or maybe it would be a good thing if all people were forced to live out the decisions they make for others. I have a feeling that a lot more people would support social welfare programs if they ever had to utilize social welfare programs.
And lest you think you will never utilize social welfare programs… well… I just laugh. Because no one knows where life will take them. Even those who have planned carefully for rainy days.
So that’s the point of all of this: when you vote, you should do so not looking at what your life looks like now, but what your life may possibly look like if things changed. Because I guarantee you, there is someone living out that reality in the here and now, and they would be eternally grateful if you thought of them as well as yourself.
I never thought I would need Obamacare.
But now I do. And you know what, I am really really really glad it exists.
Thank you, President Obama.
Update:
I placed this in the comment section, but didn’t want the point to get lost (and wanted to add a link).
One thing I think we also need to be careful about is when to blame the system, when to blame the new laws, and when to blame the insurance companies. A lot of the complaints I hear are not actually the fault of the law but a problem with the insurance companies trying to make as much money as possible off of someone else’s health issues. That’s the biggest problem with our system: that the goal of the insurance company is to make money, not actually provide coverage for health care.
And yet, we need to have insurance.
If any insurance plan was not compliant with the new law, that insurance company had a choice to become compliant and work in the best interest of their clients while still providing a salary for everyone in the company. And yet many insurance companies have not chosen to work in the best interest of their clients. Which I think says more about insurance companies than it does about the law which is simply there to make sure that people don’t burden the system and that all have access to basic health care.
Just to get a sense of the CEOs salaries for major insurers in America, you can look at stats from 2012. Cigna paid their CEO $19.1 million. One person. $19.1 million dollars. UnitedHealth: $13.4 million. Aetna is a bargain at $10.6 million. Do CEOs deserve a big salary for taking on the burden of responsibility for the company. Absolutely. But does any human on earth truly need a salary of $19.1 million dollars in order to live? Especially while their company is making access to health care prohibitively expensive for average, middle class citizens?
I just want to make sure that we’re directing our frustration in the correct direction. I don’t think the problem is really the law. I think the problem is an insurance system that takes advantage of its clients.
36 comments
Look, I hate when people take advantage of the system and mooch and never do any honest work. Those people suck. I wish they would change. But they are not most people. Most people try to work and find ways to lift themselves out of their dire situations and are stymied by a system that favors those who already have over those who have not.
I don’t like to pay taxes, but what I like even less is the thought that if I needed help, there wouldn’t be any…unless I conformed to a particular ideology that had a charitable arm. (Even though most institutions don’t require that you join their ideology in order to receive help, the idea is there.)
So, I, too, am glad that social programs exist. I’m glad my grandmother was able to support herself (in the most minimal way) when my grandfather died at age 47 – she had no skills; her intent was to become a nun before my grandfather talked her out of it. Without Social Security and Medicare, she would have been completely dependent on her children. I’m glad women of no means have the ability to feed their children. I’m glad the unemployed have some breathing space to try and recover. I’m glad that veterans get disability – when we ask them to go through traumatic situations for our benefit, we’d better be ready to support them when the trauma becomes too much to handle. And now, with Obamacare, I’m glad that everyone has access to medical coverage, because nothing should get so bad that your first treatment comes in the Emergency Room because you couldn’t afford to see to it sooner.
Sorry to hear that you’re situation has changed, but I’m very happy that you have options.
I’m so sorry you are going through this situation – it is really, really hard. Glad that you have the health insurance, though, and that the law was passed to make sure that was possible. Totally agree with you that one never knows when one is going to need social service programs.
We went through a situation a few years ago where neither of us had a full-time job. Hubs was suddenly entirely out of a job, I was finishing school and had a small part-time job. It was awful, and I remember clearly how worried we were about getting health insurance and how expensive it was. Life can change so quickly.
Thinking of you and hoping for the best for you and your family in all of this.
*your – I was going to write something else. Ack! I’ve become what I hate most!
I wonder if my mom would still be alive today if she had had access to healthcare/Obamacare and not just had to rely on the ER, which she didn’t do. She had some heartburn and other symptoms before her heart attach, which looking back could have been related, but she didn’t have money to go to the doctor. It sucks!
And although taxes are quite high here in Finland, I do not complain about them at all, as I have taken good use of them for my boy and other health issues when needed.
I’m glad you’re able to get the help you need. May others have that option too!
With my dad retiring this week after nearly 40 years as the sole provider of health insurance coverage for my family (me and my sister growing up, and just he and my mom now) – the Affordable Care Act is the only way my mom can afford her diabetic medications. They’d literally die with the ACA.
Now – bring me single payer and I’ll sing even louder praises!
As a Canadian, I sit back and watch the discussions on Obama care. I get it, it’s complex. But I am so glad to live in a place where everyone can receive medical care, regardless of their employment or personal financial situation. Is our health care system perfect? Far from it. But when my sister had a massive stroke while working but not a permanent employee, our health care system paid for her to be airlifted to the right hospital. Did emergency brain surgery, and covered the cost of 3 months in rehab and several other months of out patient therapy. I am sure the cost of her care would have been well into the hundreds of thousands, if not much more. She could have never covered those costs, and it would have bankrupted my entire family trying to help her.
What Obama is trying to do is the right thing.
It is not just for the unemployed, but also the self-employed (for example, freelancers), or for people working for very small companies. One of my friends used to live in Germany, and she told me govermental insurance is available for the self-employed. As a postdoctoral researcher, I has access to the BEST plans. Now, when I come back to the US, I may come back with a job or still freelancing when I hunt for a job. Don’t know how good (or awful) the plans will be under Obamacare, but atleast they are there.
I am sorry that things changed that make it necessary for you go on Obamacare, but man I am so, so happy that it’s there for you and anyone who needs it. I’m always thrown by people who somehow thought it wass ok that sick people couldn’t afford to be cared for, and that well people couldn’t afford preventative care. That seems like common sense basics for a functioning civil society.
Hi Mel,
I agree wholeheartedly with you. I want to share my story for people who may not know. On July 7 this year our 14-year-old son fell off his skateboard on the suburban street and incurred a traumatic brain injury. Our life went from being your every day suburban life to being something heavily medicalized. He was in a comma, had to have brain surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain–he had a skull flap surgery to re-construct his skull in addition to the original surgery. He has had ongoing therapies. This is an injury that would have bankrupted us. I think people know in the abstract the cost of a catastrophic medical event… But until you are in it you cannot believe the financial cost of it all.
Love to you,
Pam
I’m glad you have o-care too. I think worrying about mooches us like supposedly worrying about voter fraud–kind if a fake right wing thing do you can pass laws disenfranchising people or block laws that would help. And speaking of hypocrites, my bil was a highly paid law enforcement officer in california who got to retire young on a very generous pension. Yet of course he’s a crazy tea party idiot who is against pretty much any social safety nets.
A couple of months ago, my husband and I were informed that the health insurance we had through his job was no longer compatible with the ACA. We were never given a reason, just that we were going to have to do something else. We were fairly happy with the plan we had. It wasn’t perfect but it wasn’t terribly expensive and it got the job done.
At the very least, our premiums doubled. The plans didn’t seem any better than the one we already had, and in most cases the deductibles were higher. We looked into an HSA plan. With a premium that was nearly double our current premium and a family deductible of over $12’000, even that was out of reach for us. It would have been difficult to contribute to the HSA and with that high a deductible, it would have been paying twice as much to not have insurance. We couldn’t justify any of the options.
My husband and I are getting by. We’ve invested a lot of money in our home trying to lower our utility bills, we use wood heat and the fuel comes from our property. We had a garden and I’m learning to preserve our produce, we buy beef in bulk and I make as much as I can at home to lower our food costs. We don’t drive fancy cars or even have cable/dish. We have the least expensive phone plan that we could get. We’ve gotten our Internet access as cheap as we can get it…you get the idea. We’ve cut everything we can so that we aren’t living paycheck to paycheck. We are trying to build our savings and start a business.
The ACA doesn’t help people like us. I’m not saying that it is a completely terrible thing, I’m just sharing the fact that it doesn’t help everyone. The options it gave me were not affordable and the product/benefits didn’t justify the cost.
One moment stands out to me and probably always will. During the townhalls leading up to the ACA vote, I watched a video of one that took place where I lived and a woman on crutches stood up and talked about the car accident that devastated her life physically and financially. An older lady sitting near her, stood up, pointed her finger in the disabled lady’s face and said “I shouldn’t have to pay for YOU.” Her lack of empathy was stunning, as was her inability to understand how easily those roles could have been reversed.
I’m glad that the ACA is there for your family, and I’m sorry that you have found yourself in the position of having to use it.
I wonder about the plans that were non-compliant and so the employers told the employees to go fend for themselves. I know it’s complicated, but I don’t understand why the plans were not made compliant. That definitely leaves people in the lurch and it’s not fair.
And Mrs. T’s comment. Wow, just wow. Sometimes I think empathy and common decency are going the way of the Dodo.
It’s a mixed bag to me. I am all for universal health insurance or something related to that- I have multiple preexisting conditions through no fault of my own (lifestyle can’t un-crazy my immune system). Two of my 3 kids have pre-existing conditions as well. I like that I can no longer be denied, as I could NEVER get private health insurance. That said, I also have a sibling with a condition that made all plans deny her previously, who makes a small income, but had enough to pay for a tiny house and her pets. She tried Obamacare, but the plan would have meant paying $400/month plus a $4K deductible, meaning she paid $400/month to still pay 100% out of pocket for everything as she already had to do throughout a normal year. She made just a little too much for a subsidy, especially since she had been responsible and chosen not to have kids when she could not afford them. It was certainly not affordable, and I know that with my condition, insurers can still quote a jacked-up price for me and my family that would be unaffordable as well. I know a few people who have been helped who were unemployed, but it’s not perfect. I also work for a health plan who now offers an ACA plan. Ours is actually good, as we started as a non-profit Medicaid plan that already had a huge provider network and very low administrative costs. I would caution folks to think before signing up with new plans that are jumping into the ACA market- many are struggling to have an adequate provider network. Established insurers are safer.
There are parts to the ACA that are still a jumbled bureaucratic mess BUT the fact that the ACA has improved the life…almost always drastically so…of those who needed it should help us ALL feel like we benefit. I can’t use it, doesn’t do a thing for me but there was a time where my son was sick…all the time. We were helped by the state who gave us such gems as the “we will cover the medicine for the asthma but not the delivery system” blues. His every breath was on a wing an a prayer some months. There was no standard. When people complain that their insurance changed or rates went a different way…I can’t help but think but someone is LIVING where they would have DIED. I have great insurance now and my son gets all the preventative care he can get. He’s seen the best doctors and had polyps removed from his nose. Now, he plays basketball. It never would have happened if I was unable to get insurance. He would have been my bright young boy trapped in his asthma box constantly working for his own oxygen. By all means, write your congressman…campaign for changes to the act but seriously…your inconvenience is payment for someones next breath. We are all better when everyone has an improved shake in the deal of life. In my opinion, our entire country is better for trying to help people this way. People just sometimes need to change their perspective.
QueenJohnsonClan, I appreciate your perspective, but I think that you are discounting the fact that for people like myself, the increased premiums and deductibles are not just an inconvenience. For me, those things make this supposedly accessible and affordable health care just the opposite. As I stated before, we have already been cutting our spending and trying to simplify our lifestyle. So it’s not a matter of the increased expenses cramping my style–it’s about the fact that there would have come a time when we wouldn’t have been able to pay other bills had we been forced to purchase one of those plans. And since our deductibles are so high AND we are healthy, all of our health care expenses would be out of pocket anyway. Cash flow to pay for those out of pocket expenses is a very real concern. Those factors, for me, are far more than simply an inconvenience.
I wholeheartedly agree that there are great things about the ACA. I’m grateful that preventative care is covered, that maternity is covered and that preexisting conditions are not a factor. But the claim that we just need to “change our perspective” about the rest is just not true. A change in perspective will not keep my bills paid and food on my table.
Like the Canadian above, I am so glad I live in a country where everyone has access to free (largely) healthcare. I’ve just experienced private care for the first time, and it was brutal. But the brutality of not having any healthcare or having to pay a lot for it is more brutal. Wrote about it on A Separate Life. http://aseparatelife.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/the-brutality-of-private-healthcare/
I’m also a Canadian who is beyond grateful for our universal health care. It isn’t perfect, and it isn’t cheap, and it isn’t efficient, but if Q. or E. or myself has a horrendous accident tomorrow, it’s going to look after us. And I will gladly see my tax dollars going to do the same for someone else.
I’m sorry your tables have been turned. I hope a new job appears in the pipeline before too long.
I am glad the ACA was there for you when you needed it, Mel. Like Julia, I am Canadian and incredibly thankful for our universal system. As I mentioned to Mali, it’s not perfect, but it works pretty well for the vast majority of people.
Yes, Obamacare saved our bacon, too. When our daughter was born at 24 weeks gestation, we had basically gold/platinum insurance. However, when the bill showed up from the hospital at a whopping 2 million dollars, that volume easily overwhelmed what was our family lifetime cap. In other words, our family, and our daughter, would have been financially ruined 4 months before she was ever supposed to be born and by no fault of our own.
What’s more, as soon as the insurance company discovered that my daughter was on death’s door and would be racking up expenses for them, they pulled every dastardly trick in the book to drop us. Even though they had no issues what so ever processing automatic payments for the 7 years we WEREN’T sick, they immediately began having “billing glitches” and when we tried to pay by phone, our payments kept getting “lost.” The hospital billing office told us that this was a common tactic by insurance companies. If you “fail to pay,” after all, that’s immediate grounds for terminating you. Fortunately, the hospital wanted to get paid so they fought the insurance company FOR us, tooth and claw. The great irony is that the whole POINT of paying for exceptional insurance is for security in the unlikely event that something catastrophic happens. Fortunately, if we had been dropped by our company we could have signed up with a new one just as easily, thanks to the ACA.
If it weren’t for Obamacare, our premiums would probably also be in the thousands of dollars a month now, too. After all, now that my daughter has a dire “pre-existing condition,” that would have been grounds just a year ago to jack up our rates.
Without Obamacare, we still would have cost society the same amount of money. Whether we could afford insurance or not or pay for medical services, we still would have taken our daughter to the hospital if she was sick and we still would have gotten her treatment, since hospitals cannot deny care. The only difference with Obamacare is that we’re not bankrupt because of our bum luck. What’s more the costs are distributed evenly in a way that doesn’t heap responsibility in perverse places.
Overall, the Affordable Care Act is a pretty good free market solution for Universal Health Care. As a fiscal conservative myself and free market enthusiast, I can’t understand why it has attracted so much venom from the political right. They were the ones, after all, who invented it in the 90’s.
Ryanne…I was speaking in general and not directly to your comment but I will address what you have said. Your concerns are part of what think is wrong with ACA and why it probably took several presidents and generations to get an act like this passed. Everyone has bills to pay and your bills…your financial survival…is not less important than anyone else’s. I never meant to give that impression by using the word inconvenience. I still think a perspective change is healthy. I don’t think its all that’s needed but…I once didn’t buy groceries so I could get asthma medicine. My kids ate at my moms house and I ate nothing…that changes the way you look at healthcare. I didn’t have a cell phone plan to give up or expenses to cut back on…I had no peter to rob to pay Paul even :). It was literally give up a necessity or watch my son helplessly labor for breath. I needed help, and I got it. I moved on and was hired on to a great company but my perception of healthcare for all changed forever. I want the act to be improved ( my dad is self employed and paying outrageous sums of money), I believe that is right. It will never please everyone but the lives it saves…the misery it saves…that’s counted up there with everything I’ve ever owned. Changing perspectives is not about right and wrong, it’s just widening the picture a little bit and I think it has always done me a good turn to sit in a different seat. It was good advice and I was just trying to pass it on. Again, I am sorry if I offended.
One thing I think we also need to be careful about is when to blame the system, when to blame the new laws, and when to blame the insurance companies. A lot of the complaints I hear are not actually the fault of the law but a problem with the insurance companies trying to make as much money as possible off of someone else’s health issues. That’s the biggest problem with our system: that the goal of the insurance company is to make money, not actually provide coverage for health care. And yet, we need to have insurance. If the insurance plan was not compliant with the law, that insurance company had a choice to become compliant and work in the best interest of their clients while still providing a salary for everyone in the company. And yet many insurance companies have not chosen to work in the best interest of their clients. Which I think says more about insurance companies than it does about the law which is simply there to make sure that people don’t burden the system and that all have access to basic health care.
What Mel said in her last comment. Exactly that.
Mel, I’m so sorry that you guys are in this position, but glad the new law is working for you. Nothing ever pleases all of the people all of the time, but it’s becoming clear that this law is meeting a deep need. We have a good friend who suffered a devastating injury a few years back, and could never have necessary surgery. He can barely walk as a result, and his quality of life has suffered deeply. But thanks to the new healthcare law, he’s having surgery in a few weeks. Finally, FINALLY, he’s getting the care he so desperately needs.
I am so glad that the ACA is here and that you are able to take advantage of it. The inertia in the country that stymies us doing anything because some believe it’s not THE right thing or enough of THE right thing has held us back in many areas.
The ACA is one of the reasons we are able to even consider moving to another state…that we can take our current plan with us (or, more accurately, apply to the same plan through the ACA) because what we have is worth not moving for if that’s what it meant.
I am Canadian too. I agree, our health care system isn’t perfect, but having equal, accessible health care for all Canadians is something we expect. People here don’t even question the benefits and getting rid of it just isn’t on the political table here. We expect health care for everyone. Isn’t that what taxes are for?
Right on, re your update.
Oh, Mel, I am so sorry for this turn of events. I completely understand the feelings of anger and disbelief and the gut-wrenching stress that accompanies the loss of a job – especially one that was considered stable. I pray that there is a new job on the horizon. I’m very thankful that Obamacare is there for you and your family. I know it must be helpful with the twins. I’m sure they have medical needs that cannot go untreated.
As a hemodialysis patient with a diagnosis of End Stage Renal Disease (I hate those words – why can’t they just call it Total Renal Failure? It means the same thing. But End Stage Renal Disease gives the impression I’m at death’s door. I’m not! I’m being treated 3 times a week and feel so much better than I did before dialysis.) I am so, so blessed that I worked for the same government entity for nearly 23 years. I had superior insurance when I worked. I had to retire early to care for my totally disabled husband and I was able to stay with my same plan at the same price after retirement. Inevitably I turned 65 and was changed to the Medicare Advantage plan for former City employees. Still excellent coverage, but the deductibles and co-pays are creeping higher each year. Then this spring, nearly 3 years after being widowed, I had to go on dialysis. The only thing that didn’t stress me out about that was the fact I had the MA plan and was covered for my treatments. Everyday I see the patients who do not have MA plans but have State run Medicade funding. They get treatments but they have to jump through so many hoops to meet the qualifications for Medicade I don’t know how they do it. It isn’t right and it isn’t fair. It’s just the way the disadvantaged have to live.
I can understand the frustration of those who cannot afford the grossly high deductibles. My son (self-employed) and his wife (employed in a very small business office) cannot get decent insurance even under the ACA. If they can afford the premiums, the deductible is $10,000. That’s just paying premiums for nothing. So, they will probably be “fined” on their taxes next year for not purchasing ins and keeping it.
It just doesn’t make sense that the “affordable” care act can’t provide truly affordable care for everyone. Oh, my son and D-I-L make just enough money they don’t qualify for the subsidy. Frustrating.
This has gotten entirely too long, but I just wanted to get my experience out there. Also, I think it does provide life saving care for many, but my heart goes out to those who fall through the cracks.
I hope in some way the Government will keep refining the ACA and mandate that the private insurance companies follow pricing guidelines. It probably won’t happen that way but if we all write, email or call our elected representatives maybe there be some movement in that direction.
I’m grateful for the option, too, knowing how precarious life is, and how things change in a heartbeat. I would gladly help to support someone else through my taxes … perhaps because I believe that we really are all interconnected.
So, I’m not going to get specifically into American health care politics (tonight – but as a short aside yay Australia) but I wanted to pluck this out:
“So that’s the point of all of this: when you vote, you should do so not looking at what your life looks like now, but what your life may possibly look like if things changed. ”
And say yes, very much yes, and I’m a Rawls girl myself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_of_ignorance
Re: Update…You said it sister 🙂
I think part of the problem is the insurance companies, yes. But part of it is the underlying *costs* of healthcare, which is something the law hasn’t touched. I look back to a time when my son had a specific type of feeding tube that cost $12k to replace – minimally 4 times a year. (It was a 15 minute procedure, no anesthesia. The feeding tube itself cost maybe $500 of that.) There is no *way* a family could afford that without insurance – but insurance also needs to be making enough money to be able to pay out on that claim. But of course, the cost is absurd in the first place, because it didn’t involve that many people or that much equipment or time to justify it. It’s not like it was brain surgery (which, for the record, ran around $45k last time, including anesthesia and 2 overnights in a heavily staffed unit). We have some office visits that run on the order of $1000. I don’t begrudge these doctors a good salary either – or the nurses, or janitors, techs, etc. I really and truly don’t. But between the base cost of health care *and* the insurance companies, the ACA isn’t going to sustainable on its own. Something more has to change.
But I am glad that it’s there for you right now, to get you through.
Amen, Mel. I am so thankful every single day to have Obama Care available to me. Last year, my only insurance option was over $750/month. This year, I am paying $130. It is the only reason I am able to afford coverage now, and I will forever feel blessed because of it.
I’m sorry you are in the position of needing it now yourselves, but I am also so glad it is available to you as well.
Mel, I’m sorry you are going through this, but glad you have this safety net. Glad that everyone has this safety net. yes there are problems, and I agree wholeheartedly with your update re: the source of the problems. The answer isn’t to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but to petition and work for real improvements. Denying basic healthcare because someone cannot afford it is inhumane and is not how a society should function.
And to ANDMom’s point…yes the costs are absurd, the inconsistency and the lack of transparency. But very little of it is going into ANYONE’s pocket but the CEO and shareholders of the hospital system. Yes, even if its a “non-profit” it is making someone rich and it aint’ anyone actually providing healthcare.
And to ANDMom’s point…yes the costs are absurd, the inconsistency and the lack of transparency. But very little of it is going into ANYONE’s pocket but the CEO and shareholders of the hospital system. Yes, even if its a “non-profit” it is making someone rich and it aint’ anyone actually providing healthcare.