On Monday a letter writer applauded the affordability of the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”). (“Kudos for setting up exchange.”) His $1,000-per-month savings over his current plan are truly astonishing.
Unfortunately, my experience is drastically different. My wife and I (in our 50s) and two adult children currently pay $708 per month for our individual catastrophic coverage. Next year we won’t be allowed to keep our plan because it doesn’t cover the cost of maternity care, abortions, prescriptions, and pediatric care. (Remember President Obama on Aug. 11, 2009, promising “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan?” Not quite true.) Of course, we don’t want or need those coverages because they are irrelevant to the circumstances of our lives. But apparently someone else knows better what we really need.
Instead, we will be required to purchase a plan that will cost $1,731 per month — an increase of $1,023 (244 percent!), or $12,276 per year! (See www.wahealthplanfinder.org.) And where am I to come up with those funds? Not from a taxpayer subsidy, because I make $21/month more than the qualifying level (but why should someone else be forced to pay for my insurance in the first place?) Would you guess my employer can’t afford that much either?
As study after study and real-life examples such as mine are beginning to show, the Affordable Care Act is proving to be a cruelly deceitfully marketed and devastating punishment of hard-working Americans. I heartily support any legal means of crippling the legislation before it financially ruins me and my family and others like us.
Kent Hendricks
Bothell
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