February, 2015, Part 5, The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care: Personal Stories of Stress, Hassles, and Higher Health Care Costs

This week in our four previous posts we have focused on the top line, national negative impacts that Obama Care has had on the country. Higher national debt, depressed job and economic growth, higher costs, Presidential lies and deceptions, etc. However, there is another perspective on the suffering and failures of this legislation that is at the personal and family level.

A lot of that suffering and failure has been captured by the wonder website, Our Health Care Stories, and their website:

www.ourhealthcarestories.com

There, individual Americans tell their horrors stories from Obama Care in detail and in their own words. This is what Obama, Congress, heartless and high paid consultants like Jonathan Gruber, and other big money and big time stakeholders have done to the people and families of Americans: they enacted and supported a piece of legislation that never had a chance of resolving the major issue it set out to resolve: the ever escalating high costs of health care in this country.

Read their stories and decide whether this whole effort from their perspective and the more global perspective that we have discussed over the past four days and past two years is the worst piece of legislation ever passed by Washington. I dare you to present evidence that it is not, especially after seeing what has been done to the following Americans and millions like them.

RICHARD - MONTANA: I'm currently paying $229 per month on a plan from Humana that does exactly what I want. It'll keep me from going broke if something bad happens.

That Humana plan does not comply with ObamaCare. So it will be cancelled at some point. Originally it was scheduled to be cancelled at the end of 2014, now I'm not sure if it will be extended to 2016 or what.

The least expensive policy I could find that complied with Ocare was about $500/mo. and that was for this year. My understanding is that compliant policies for 2015 will be about 20% higher. I hope I can keep the current policy for next year, but I don't know. I am displeased

DAVID - NEVADA: I was really looking forward to my $2,500 savings I was promised. My total yearly cost instead went up by $2,620 with a higher deductible. President Obama could not have been this far off in his prediction which means he knew he was lying and said it anyway.

JOCELYN - NEW HAMPSHIRE: In some states, it's already recognized as a problem. It's magnified in New Hampshire because just one insurer, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, is offering plans there through the new marketplace. The company's new network for individual plans excludes 10 of the state's 26 frontline hospitals.

That was a rude awakening for Dr. Jocelyn Caple, who works at one of the excluded hospitals, Frisbie Memorial in Rochester, N.H., where she's president of the medical staff. She and her family are currently covered under their own policy with Anthem.

"We all use Frisbie physicians," she said. Although there's another facility she could go to next year, "it's pretty shocking not be able to come to your own hospital."

MARK - KANSAS: My sister, God Bless her, 2 years ago had a major blood clot on her leg then last year has been diagnosed with congestive heart failure. In fact right now she should not be working in order to get surgery to put a pace maker in her heart. She was forced to buy one of those ObamaCare insurance policies. She has to pay $300+ a month in addition to a $2,000+ deductible. She has a ton of medical bills in addition to the $100+ for medications she needs just to stay alive. This is tearing me apart as her Brother to have to have to stand by and watch while Obamacare slowly kills my sister.

JULIE - NEW MEXICO: Last June, Birch received a letter from Lovelace Insurance warning her that her coverage would be terminated. However, it told her to wait for more information before she did anything. The months rolled past and no phone call came. She paid her premium in December, assuming everything was sorted out. However, on January 4, 2014, she was told her insurance was cancelled and she would have to log onto the New Mexico healthcare exchange. So she did.

After spending two hours filling personal information into the ever-growing ACA database, the system stopped her from enrolling her children. It needed to determine if her sons were eligible for Medicaid. The error message promised that a state representative would contact her, but no one has. When she tried to call, the wait was 45 minutes.

Birch wasn’t eligible for the marketplace’s Platinum plan, but the next best thing – the Gold plan – offered her comparable care for $519.23 a month with a $3,000 deductible—an increase of over $175 a month with no coverage for her children caught in Medicaid limbo.

Her frustration escalated not because the cost increased and her children were uninsured, but because none of the plans let her keep her primary care or orthopedic doctors.

"This is just downright unacceptable," Birch said. "You develop relationships [with doctors] for a reason."

JACKIE - SOUTH CAROLINA: For Jackie Fowler, Obama was correct: She got to keep her plan and her doctors. But that comfort costs a hefty fee. As predicted by the CMS report released last month[ . . .] she and her seven other employees are eight of the 11 million people whose premiums will increase because of Obamacare.

Last year, they paid $24,300 for their institutional group healthcare plan. Now they will have to pay $55,632 in 2014. Non-smokers in their mid-fifties and good health, she and her husband must dole out $2,000 a month for their personal coverage – double what they paid last year.

Fowler and her single fellow female employee had no need for maternity care, so they used to opt out of the coverage. Now, however, even the men in the office must be covered for their next birth.

"I don’t know what we are going to do," Fowler said, citing concern for the company’s longevity.

When asked if they will cancel their group plan and send their employees to the marketplace, Fowler said the options on the website are very limited. Although there are some plans which offer comparable care, "none of [their] doctors or their affiliate hospital are in the provider network." She is forced to choose between her doctor and an enormous insurance bill.

"I don’t know where they get the ‘affordable.’ This is anything but affordable," Fowler said. "We should be saving for retirement, not paying for insurance."

NEAL - MICHIGAN: Beyond higher out-of-pocket costs, some workers at the dealership face higher premiums. Premiums vary because of age and family size. Some end up paying slightly less or about the same for premiums. But older workers with families pay significantly more.

Among the hardest hit is Campbell, a salesman with a wife and three young children, all of whom are active in athletics. The premium payments currently deducted weekly from his paycheck will increase $77, to a total of $221 per week. "That's a huge part of the budget," he said. "We feel betrayed, lied to, and we're pissed off."

THERESA - FLORIDA: I live in Orlando FL. I am presently unemployed. I have BCBS of FL for about 3 years now. It just doubled in price because of the affordable healthcare act. I am a single 51 year old woman with no children, but I am now paying for childrens vision and dental when my plan does not even cover that for me! I do not qualify for medicaid or the tax credit so I have to cancel my insurance. I can no longer afford it since the new laws. I am devastated. What happens if I get sick?

TARA - FLORIDA: I work for a fortune 100 company. We used to have blue cross blue shield, good insurance, $500 deductible. Under Obamacare we lost or insurance company, my deductible went up to $1500, with another 20% out of pocket to the next $1500! I have been told that I need to have a diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound. The cost of the tests and the 2 fees for a radiologist to read each one will come to about $1700 which must be paid up front. I don't have it and have no way to get it, so now, I live in fear each day that I have breast cancer and no way to find out! Thanks Obama . . . NOT!

ROGER - OREGON: Over the past 3 years my health care costs have been driven up by 25%, 25% and 31% because of Obamacare. In 2013 my doctor decided to get out of the medical field because there was no money to be made. So I lost my doctor at a time I was admitted to the hospital for ulcers due to being told to take aspirin daily. Didn't work so well. Signing up for 2014 was a nightmare because the company I work for had to discontinue my policy because it was considered a "Cadillac" plan. The only other one they offered, doubled my costs in terms of deductible and out of pocket expenses. 

For two people now on a private company sponsored plan I now have to budget for $13k per year just to have insurance at all whether I use it or not. If either of us has issues I have to budget for another $8k in deductibles and out of pocket expenses. Yes my company helps with about 2/3 of the $13k basic policy but won't offer anything if I retire. So, at $21k per year for two people this is my largest bill if I do retire.

AARON - KENTUCKY: Dentist Aaron McLemore of Louisville, Ky., makes more than $100,000 a year and doesn't qualify for any subsidy on the Obamacare exchange. The 31-year-old's current policy is being canceled. A new policy from the exchange will more than double his monthly premium and nearly double his yearly out-of-pocket maximum.

His higher costs aren't subsidizing lower-income policyholders, whose subsidy has already been paid by the government. But he is providing a subsidy in another way: The Affordable Care Act requires him to buy a policy with features he doesn't need.

"Seeing as I'm a single male with no kids or dependents, and I'm paying for pediatric dental care and maternity care, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me," McLemore says.

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What a mess. Never has an act out of Washington disrupted so many lives in such a negative fashion for no reason at all. And as we have pointed out many, many times, this disruption is being caused for no reason since the legislation has not chance of being successful since it does not address the root causes of our high healthcare costs int his country. It mistook a public health problem for a lack of insurance problem and thus, applied the wrong solution to the wrong the problem.

That will do it for this month's unfolding disasters being spawned out of Obama Care. However, this is a bad piece of legislation that keeps on giving so expect more disasters next month.

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