Froma Harrop’s Nov. 5 column, “Eyes will dry over Obamacare,” is doing the citizens of Washington a huge disservice in relation to the Affordable Care Act. Her example of cancelled health-care policies painted a truly inaccurate picture of what is really happening to us. I am one of thousands of citizens of this state who was misled by the president. I wanted to keep my policy. Fortunately, my family is fairly healthy with no major health issues. To keep the costs down, we have been purchasing Catastrophic HSA plans. They covered major health problems but left a few things for us to self fund. We have no drug coverage, preventative care and no maternity/birth control care. Our family drug costs ran around $100 a year and total costs paid out of the HSA account ran about $2,000 a year, we never reached the deductible. Our plans are now cancelled because they did not conform to the new requirements of the ACA.
The recommended plans that was closest to what we had before and conforms to the new standards raised our premiums from $866/month to over $1,500/month! It doesn’t make sense for Washington families to bare the brunt of this premium increase.
There maybe some of you out there that believe the exchange will help, what a great idea! I checked the exchange and the premium for the HSA policy is roughly the same, about $1,350. In this case, the federal government will give a tax credit in the amount of approximately $600/month. I am stuck with two choices, either pay for unnecessary coverage the government mandates to the tune of $7,600 out of my own pocket or have the government shell out $7,200 for the unwanted and ill-conceived coverage policies.
Is this the best we can do? Does this sound like sound fiscal policy? Can the U.S. government actually afford the ACA credit even though it owes trillions? I expect something a lot smarter from our leaders. When will they learn that broad, one-size fits all policies creates more waste and incredible inefficiencies where none existed before.
Gary Morgan
Brier
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