fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2476 ]

[ SECRET POST #2476 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2476 ⌋

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

As someone who is very much against, my major objection boils down to two things.

I can not afford to buy insurance, but now, if I don't, I must pay a fine. Which I can afford to pay this year, but it will go up year by year and quickly get to where I can't afford it.

To break this down into numbers, I work as a waitress right now. I make, in gross pay, about ~$500 every two weeks. I lose over half of that to federal, state, and social security tax withholding, leaving me with ~$200-$240 every two weeks to live on. (Don't anybody freak out, I'm not starving. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say, I've worked it out to where I'm not on government assistance of any kind nor am I taking money from family members.) Since plans from private insurers are out of my reach, that puts me on what are called "exchanges." The "Bronze" plans--the cheapest ones--cost ~$300-$400 per month, and have deductibles in the $5000 and $6000 ranges.

So, if I do not pay 75-100% of my income every four weeks for health care, I am fined on my tax returns and become a criminal for being poor. Even though I am in the lowest income bracket. But, supposedly, this law helps people who are basically me, afford insurance. Even though this is helpful in absolutely no way at all.

I object, on principle, being required to buy anything simply because I am alive and an American citizen. Before anyone brings up the oh-so-clever car insurance thing, let me point out that owning a car is not the same thing as being alive. Not everyone owns a car. Heck, in New York City, most people do not. As a result, they do not need to buy car insurance. But everyone has a health status, and via Obamacare everyone is now mandated to buy insurance, whether they need it or not. Which makes this law tantamount to a fee to be alive.

Really, seriously, not cool.

I won't get into how hilariously inept the people manning HealthCare.gov are, and the part about how this stops being funny when you realize that those same people are in charge of health care decisions now.

How is it that you don't qualify for subsidies or Medicaid with an income that low?

The qualifications are really fiddly under the changes Obamacare has made. I might have qualified before, but that doesn't seem to be the case anymore.

Which isn't the point, in any case. I shouldn't have to worry about this. I shouldn't need to be afraid for my future just because I'm poor and don't have insurance. And if it weren't for Obamacare, I wouldn't.

Edited 2013-10-14 01:45 (UTC)

Your story doesn't make sense. In fact it sounds a lot like some of the debunked stories Republicans were trying to pass off as sob stories recently. Of course I can't state there will absolutely be no one falling through the cracks during this act's infancy but poor people without insurance were already worried for their future, this isn't something created by this act.

I can't make you believe me, so I won't try. But assuming bad faith simply because what someone says doesn't fit into your worldview is pretty uncool.

In any case, I wasn't afraid for my future prior to Obamacare, even without insurance. My one medical condition (I'm very nearsighted), I could handle. I paid for things out-of-pocket, which took planning and saving, but it's doable. And for poor people with bigger medical expenses, there are other ways to help them that don't involve hurting people in situations like mine and the anon's below.

Really? You think claiming you will experience this incredible financial burden due to new "fiddly" requirements without any further clarification doesn't sound suspicious?

If god forbid you'd had an unexpected accident or developed a serious medical condition you could have paid for that out of pocket with planning and saving? It's not doable unless you're very lucky. Please tell me what other ways were there to help all the poor people with big medical expenses. Because I've watched people suffer crippling debt and in one case actually die because they couldn't afford their medical care.

I'm in a similar position to the above person and I find your "I'VE KNOWN PEOPLE SO I KNOW YOUR SITUATION BETTER THAN YOU" thing to be infuriating. If you're not in an untenable position, it probably wouldn't occur to you that misguided help might make it worse.

Never said I knew the OP's situation. I actually said I didn't know the OP's situation because they didn't explain it they only alluded to it supporting their position.

DA--If I may ask, what state do you live in? One of the ones that didn't take federal money to expand medicare? Because I know that's screwing over a lot of people--in states that did take the money, any single person making under roughly $15,000 per year qualifies for medicare, with adjustments for household size, kids, stuff like that. In states that didn't take the money, a lot of people are fucked, mainly because the people who bashed out the ACA didn't anticipate a bunch of states refusing to expand medicare for political reasons. I really hope you manage to figure something out--I know this isn't a practical solution for most people poor enough to be affected by it, but I'm kinda hoping people who would qualify for assistance if they moved to another state start doing that.

According to a couple of sources I've seen now, "The Department of Health and Human Services issued a final rule in August exempting people from penalties for not having insurance if they would have qualified for Medicaid coverage had their state chosen to expand the program." But I don't know whether the law says anything about people living in states that did expand Medicaid, whose income falls below the qualification line, but who for some other reason still don't qualify (I know in my state, they can get you for weird stuff like owning funeral plots, which are regarded as assets.)

Could you qualify for government assistance of some kind if you applied?

+1 to all of this.

I'm in the same boat as you, it sounds like. I should say that I'm about as liberal as you can get, and it's because of this that I'm very VERY opposed to Obamacare. Like you said, it's charging people for being alive, and fining them if they can't afford the ludicrous prices for this shit.

I work at my family's business. Because of the screwy tax bullshit and because we're all technically 'self employed', it's basically impossible for us to qualify for any kind of govt aid like food stamps or medicare/aid, although we do qualify for a 'bronze' plan. We're dirt fucking poor and are now going to be expected to pay $100 per month, per person?

If we get a household plan, that's hundreds of dollars a month that WE DON'T HAVE, for a plan that has a deductible so high that it would probably bankrupt our family if we ever had to get medical care under it. It's fucking ridiculous.

And this is the fucking pricing we got from the gov website after inputting all of our info. I'm not just pulling this out of my ass. I think a lot of people don't understand how expensive this is going to be, and how this mandate might literally destroy people's lives.

One of the things the ACA is supposed to do is expand Medicaid so people who straight up can't afford insurance (like you) still have insurance. This is supposed to be covered by federal government funds entirely for the first three years, and up to 90% covered in the later years. Depending on your state, however, some politicians (read: mostly Republicans) are refusing to expand Medicaid.

Basically, there were provisions for your situation, but politicians are being assholes about it. Fortunately, there's this:

"The government has said people who would have been covered by Medicaid in states that aren’t accepting the expansion will not face fines."

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/10/12/4384009/poorest-of-the-poor-left-out-of.html#.UltPNFCkrzo#storylink=cpy"

So, if you're eligible for Medicaid (or would be), you're supposedly golden.

DA--I'm in California and supposedly qualify for Medi-Cal based on my last tax return, so this doesn't apply to me, but that's cool about people in states where legislators are being bastards not having to pay the fines. I was worried about that on behalf of all the people who are already being fucked over just because of where they live. I hope people who can afford to start voting with their feet and move to states that took federal money for expanding their health-care safety net.

...if we could afford to move, we probably wouldn't be where we are right now...

But it's a nice sentiment! :)

Well, it's a shitty plan, yeah. We should have had single-payer, and then neither of those would be issues. But... compromise, I guess, and a visceral fear of socialism, or something, so that wasn't apparently a viable option.

I do think that, in a lot of ways, for all that it's a shitty plan, it's still a good law, because for all that it is bad, it is still better than it was before - for health policy as a whole. Because even if it is bad that people are forced to buy health care, it's still better than them not being able to buy health care. Even if everything you say is true, that doesn't necessarily mean that the law is a bad law - just a lot shittier than it could have been, and unfortunately shitty for you, and that sucks and I'm sorry.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2476 ]

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