2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Who else wanted single-payer universal healthcare over the ACA? [View all]Liberty Belle
(9,551 posts)Before I got screwed by an insurer who first dropped me, then when Obamacare made insurers cover me despite a past skin cancer bout they tripled my rates. Later the company fled the state. Under Obamacare there was a long delay getting rates reduced to get subsidies after my hubby lost his job (took 4 months, because they count your income for the whole year to determine if you get a subsidy). We did benefit by keeping a kid in college on the plan for a while and eventually did get good subsidiies, but now that hubby found a new job it's going through the roof again even with the ACA.
Middle class families are getting squeezed. The ACA is great for the poor and those who were not insured at all. The rich can afford the higher premiums. Others can't.
Don't get me wrong. Before Obamacare many things were even worse. A friend whose colon exploded and nearly died was told reconnecting it would be considered "elective surgery" by a heartless insurer, before Obamacare. He was left a million dollars in debt and can never buy a home or the hospital would put a lien on it to collect on its bill. An insurer once denied our daughter life-saving heart surgery until the doctor convinced them it would cost more to have her in and out of ERs for the years she'd live than to pay for the surgery. All of that was before Obamacare. But if the premiums are still unaffordable under Obamacare for working people with fixed cost like a mortgage, it's still not good enough.
I agree with Bernie,healthcare should be a right, not a privilege for the rich. I would gladly pay a little more in taxes to rest assured that I could access quality healthy no matter what.