Our Continuing Journey Through the Hell Wrought by Obamacare

Our Continuing Journey Through the Hell Wrought by Obamacare

My husband and I purchase individual health insurance policies — he has a small one-man business and I subcontract to an agency. We both carry health savings accounts, have found them to be affordable, and appreciate the independence they provide us. We also like our individual doctors, and we sure want to keep them.

In late October, both of us got the dreaded letters from our insurance company (we both purchase through the same company), stating that neither of our plans fit into the demands of the Affordable Care Act, and that the company would automatically shift us into more compliant policies starting January 1 — with premiums which were doubled in price and accompanied by an increase in our deductibles. After all, we needed to have access to maternity and children’s dental, even though I’m past child-bearing and our kids are grown.

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We worked through the agent who guided us through our first HSA purchases — an incredibly knowledgeable conservative woman who, as an expert in HSAs, was privileged to meet with President Bush in 2006 in a round table discussion on this type of plan. Beverly advised us to pop in our income numbers into her website to see if we could get subsidies through the federal healthcare exchange (our state has no exchanges). She had told my husband that some clients were coming away pleasantly surprised.

So we did. And we were surprised. Pleasantly.

However, the devil, as is said, is in the details.

I could no longer see the doctor I liked. I could no longer see the specialist who cares for my early osteoporosis. The subsidized rates also come with a limited network of doctors.

Furthermore, Beverly told us that should the House win its lawsuit against Obamacare (King v. Burwell), which claims that Congress authorized subsidies but never appropriated funds, then subsidies would no longer be available. The ruling should come down in the spring of 2015.

So, because it’s important to me to keep my doctors, I will bite the bullet and pay the jacked-up premium. My husband is still researching his options.

I’m afraid it’s about to get worse for us all. Much, much worse.

UPDATE:  The husband spent four hours last night battling the Obamacare website, and then finally broke down and contacted our (sainted) agent once again, spending about 45 minutes with her on the phone wading through the obtuse questions. His discount was not as much as expected, and he still has a higher monthly premium than his cancelled insurance policy. He said completing the process was like emerging from Dante’s Inferno.

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Kim is a pint-sized patriot who packs some big contradictions. She is a Baby Boomer who never became a hippie, an active Republican who first registered as a Democrat (okay, it was to help a sorority sister's father in his run for sheriff), and a devout Lutheran who practices yoga. Growing up in small-town Indiana, now living in the Kansas City metro, Kim is a conservative Midwestern gal whose heart is also in the Seattle area, where her eldest daughter, son-in-law, and grandson live. Kim is a working speech pathologist who left school system employment behind to subcontract to an agency, and has never looked back. She describes her conservatism as falling in the mold of Russell Kirk's Ten Conservative Principles. Don't know what they are? Google them!

5 Comments
  • Lucy says:

    I’m one of the lucky ones, I guess — at least my plan hasn’t been canceled (yet)… but my monthly premium went right through the roof. Apparently I’m not supposed to mind that, because now I can get free birth control (I’m sixty years old). Thanks for nothing, Obama.

  • Appalled By The World says:

    Affordable health care, eh? The biggest and worst lie out of hundreds from the worst presidency ever. If a private industry conducted itself the way this regime has in regards to health care a whole lot of people would have been in jail by now. A lot of the creeps who pushed for this certainly should be in prison for fraud because that’s exactly what this is.

  • William says:

    I’ve still got an individual policy, but it will be going up again in January and will be nearly unaffordable. On top of that, I will be moving out of state and will have to get a new policy, which will probably also be very expensive. Like you say, as a single man, I don’t see why I need to pay for the child care options.

  • Kate says:

    Sorry this is happening to you guys. Thanks for sharing your story.

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