Weekly Address: If You Haven't Gotten Covered, Now's Your Chance

[cal04]

Source: White House

In this week's address, the President discussed the importance of reducing the number of people without health insurance. Because of the Affordable Care Act, more people now have the security of health insurance than ever before. As the law’s coverage provisions have taken effect, 17.6 million Americans have gained coverage, and the nation’s uninsured rate now stands at its lowest level ever. The ACA is working, making health care more affordable, accessible, and of higher quality for millions of people. But there are still Americans around the country who are eligible for Marketplace coverage yet remain uninsured. The President encouraged those who do not have health insurance at this point, especially those whose communities are part of the Healthy Communities Challenge, to go online, take advantage of the open enrollment period that began this past weekend, and sign up for health care coverage.

Read more: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/11/07/weekly-address-if-you-havent-gotten-covered-nows-your-chance

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(snip)
If you haven’t gotten covered yet, or if you care about someone who hasn’t gotten covered yet, now’s your chance. It’s open enrollment season for the Health Insurance Marketplace.

What that means is, with a few clicks on HealthCare.gov, you’ll find private insurance companies competing for your business. You can compare plans and choose the one that’s right for your family. In fact, most Americans will find an option that costs less than $75 a month. Even if you already have insurance through the Marketplace, check it out. Shopping around can save you a lot of money -- last year, consumers who shopped saved almost $400.

(snip)
What we’re talking about is no longer just a law, and it's certainly not the myths and scare tactics that the cynics have peddled our way for years. This is reality. This is health care in America. And the bottom line is, Americans like it. They’re happy with their plans and their premiums.

So join them. Give it a shot. Check out HealthCare.gov, CuidadoDeSalud.gov, or call 1-800-318-2596 to find a plan that’s right for you or someone you care about.

And by the way -- if you live in one of the 20 cities participating in our Healthy Communities Challenge, I want to see how many of your neighbors you can get signed up. I’ll come visit the city that enrolls the highest percentage of folks who aren’t covered right now. That’s a promise.

After all, this country is at its best when we look out for each other. And together, we can help more Americans get the security that they and their families deserve.

[hobbit709]

1. If you're one of the millions where anything beyond food and rent is a luxury.

you just flat out can't afford anything else.

[SmittynMo]

2. They’re happy with their plans and their premiums?

I'm sorry, but I do not agree.

Fact: My wife and I qualify for the ACA and have been on it for the past 1.5 years. We qualify for the maximum tax credits of 999.00, due to our low income. For 2015, my crappy bronze plan cost me 241.00 out of pocket with a 6K deductible. It was better than nothing. Pretty much, the only thing it covered were wellness visits. If you got sick, and went to the doctor, it was all out of pocket, and applied to deductible. For 2016, the same crappy plan is going to go up 300.00 a month. Since I am at the maximum tax credit, this comes right out my pocket. I CANNOT AFFORD to put up another 300.00 a month for insurance, and am seriously considering dropping insurance completely. I immediately sent a letter to President Obama to see if he could help, by possibly raising the tax credits. His reply was more or less, it's not going to happen.

The ACA is quickly turning into the NACA (Not Affordable Care Act)

[catrose]

3. I was wondering when we could start talking about that

That everything except wellness is paid out of pocket until the deductible (always thousands of dollars) is met. And some of us don't have the thousands of dollars to meet the deductible. It's supposed to make us "better consumers" so that we "shop" for the best prices. The result is we go without, the cheapest option of all.

[SmittynMo]

4. The insurance companies are raking in massive profits

Obama helped a lot of us with the ACA. But it's time for healthcare for all. Single payer.

Vote for Bernie and make it happen.

[catrose]

7. Oh, absolutely

My adult child bought the platinum plan, when for the first time he could buy something besides the crap plans contracting firms offer you, and two months later he was diagnosed with leukemia. Through two months' more of testing, I kept asking, "Do you need help?" And he said, "No. It's all covered." Beautiful words.

But yes, single payer. Bernie. Agreed.

[Skittles]

16. is he doing alright, catrose?

[catrose]

20. He is

He drew to an inside straight in cancer poker. He has chronic, not acute leukemia (lots of blood and painful tests show), and basically he just gets monitored for a long time. "Coincidentally," it's one of the effects of working with a certain machine in a chip fab, one of his contracting jobs where they didn't much care at all about worker safety. Hey, that's why they worked with fungible, disposable contractors. He was having headaches and nausea every day, and he found out that the woman on the shift before his was also having these symptoms, he read up on the machine and found that such symptoms indicated that it wasn't working properly. So he reported it and was fired the same day. And years later has chronic leukemia to show for it. I could get really, really upset about this.

[Skittles]

21. wow

that is horrible

I wish the best for you and your son

[catrose]

22. Thank you

He and his friends are poster children for what the millennials face in the job market. For instance, they rent places that doesn't take a contribution from everyone to afford, so that when inevitably someone is out of work, the others can still pay rent. And soon it will be their turn...

[antigop]

10. and someone called me a "troll" on this thread for pointing all of this out...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251390639

[bananas]

17. "The ACA is quickly turning into the NACA (Not Affordable Care Act)"

k&r

[Reter]

5. $75 a month?

Last I checked several months back, it was $307 per month, and I make a pathetic $28k per year.

[SmittynMo]

8. The only way to get it for that price is

I don't care how much you make, the ACA 's max tax credit is 999.00. So to get it for 75.00, you would have to purchase a plan that costs 1074.00 a month. Can you imagine what kind of policy that might be? 15K deductibles? I am paying almost 550.00 a month for a crappy bronze plan.

[bread_and_roses]

6. Oh, what a crock

Sorry, but it is NOT affordable for way too many - and never will be - because the Vampire Insurers must have their pound of flesh.

[SmittynMo]

9. It's getting to be more than a pound.

Last edited Sat Nov 7, 2015, 11:25 AM - Edit history (1)

My payment more than doubled in 1 year.

[snappyturtle]

11. I haven't talked with anyone with ACA that's happy. Most complain that they're paying

more with high deductibles....some lost much better deals with their employers when the employers 'dumped' them.

[Fred Sanders]

12. Good on you, Mr. President. Ignore the factually challenged on the Left as well.

Obamacare forever!*

It is like a RW thread in here......attacking Obama on DU because he regulated the insurance industry for the first time ever.....is a bit contradictory.

*Until further notice and improvement

[SmittynMo]

18. The ACA was never intended to last forever.

As time is going on though, it is obvious that something else needs to be done. The insurance companies are milking this for everything they can get, to get to a point where you cannot afford it. By then, they would have made billions. They are definitely taking advantage of the situation, and the lower income people in this nation.

Hey, without the ACA, I would not have had insurance, even as crappy as it may be. It's certainly saved my ass, and many others.

But its not a permanent solution.

If you want that, and most of us do, ELECT BERNIE. He is our only way out of the spiraling costs of insurance and health care.

[Fred Sanders]

19. Forever? It has barely been 3 years! Give it time to settle and then a progression to single

payer will be next up.

[davidthegnome]

13. Good news for some.

Not much help for part time workers who don't earn the minimum for the subsidies though. The ACA along with medicaid expansion might not have been the perfect solution, but it could have worked (and in many instances, it did, for a lot of people). It could have worked out much better if several states hadn't rejected the medicaid expansion. I'm not sure which states, besides Maine, have continued to reject it, but it is effectively a block to a number of such people getting any kind of health insurance.

I qualified for the subsidies for about a year - so for about a year I had health insurance. Then I lost my full time job and started working part time instead (in part for health reasons). Unfortunately, I had to report the life change on the health insurance website and I no longer qualify for the subsidies because I make too little money - which never made much sense to me. How is it that you can make too little money to qualify for assistance? I guess that was supposed to be covered under the medicaid expansion, but in cases like mine, thanks to Republican Governors, it didn't.

Ironically, it was just after I lost my health insurance that I injured my back. Do you know what it costs out of pocket for evaluations, for physical therapy, or, worse, for surgery? A whole hell of a lot more than I can afford. It's not just a matter of saying it's too much - I literally could not afford it, even if I stopped making payments on all other debts and bills and stopped buying anything at all.

I also take medications, the generic versions, which aren't as expensive, but without the insurance, they're about forty bucks per refill - as opposed to five.

I don't really have much choice but to grit my teeth and carry on, but every time I pull my back out, or struggle to get out of bed in the morning, I remind myself to thank Governor LePage. Him - and the cowardly democrats who weren't willing to fight for a public option, or who didn't support it at all to begin with.

Lots of good reasons to vote for Sanders, but this is one of my own. It may be selfish, but I could really use some health insurance.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. Thanks for posting!

Alot of work still to be done to take back control and not just on the congressional level but in our states - many of which are under GOP loon control that have wrecked havoc with consumers trying to get access to affordable healthcare.

[riversedge]

15. K and R-