So, I decided to start a new organization, appropriately called Patients With Pre-existing Conditions.
We are proud sponsors of the Patient Protection Pledge, asking every member of Congress to pledge to oppose any legislation that denies access to affordable, quality health care for patients with pre-existing conditions.
I am live-calling every Senator and Congressman on the our Periscope channel. Sign up for updates at our site, we are just getting set up to take donations. Follow us on twitter: pre_existing and facebook: preexisting.
One difference is that North Carolina has decided to turn down free Federal money for people on the ACA, called Medicaid expansion.
Apparently several hardcore conservative states have decided to do so - as a big F-U to Obama and the less well to do folks in their states. That may be why the Medicaid aspect on your application was slowing down the process. It’s the same for many other red states/Southern states. I live in another one of those states but we are able to get healthcare insurance through my wife’s employer, which is basically what is keeping me alive.
My impression is that Obama was making concessions to conservatives and big business by letting the existing healthcare industry play a part in the Affordable Care Act - instead of socializing the whole thing and making it single payer and having a level playing field for the citizens of all 50 states.
Or maybe I just don’t understand what’s going on, because politicians.
That’s all on your state. North Carolina declined Medicare expansion and the billion+ dollars of Federal monies that would have come with it. North Carolina’s HHS dragged its heels responding to you. Blame McCrory and your state legislature, not the ACA.
Edit: Posted before reading @sockdoll’s more detailed post.
I do blame McCrory and the Republicans for that, and for the ways that even now they’re trying to negate my ballot. But they’re not responsible for the ways I outlined above that the ACA Marketplace sucks right now for 2017.
The AHCA made health care 50% more affordable for me as I spent the last few years focused on a small business with my partners, a small arts and culture publication.
My family went from employer-provided insurance in 2013 to private insurance in 2014. The 2014 plan was comparable to one available through the ACA Marketplace. In 2015 we purchased through the ACA, and in 2016 we purchased a plan privately that was essentially the same as the ACA plan we tried to get but couldn’t.
Our ACA premium for 2017 is 100% higher than the 2014 premium. It’s fine to rightfully point out that things could be a lot worse without the ACA, but they’re still terrible with it. I think all that can be said for the ACA is that it bought us some time.
And that is why the ACA was spectacularly crappy. It was better than what came before, but compared to a proper public health system it’s awful.
The main problem with American healthcare is the colossal amount of unproductive rent extraction by the private insurance industry. Decent and affordable public healthcare cannot coexist with this; the first step in healthcare reform needs to be “destroy the profits of the private health insurance industry”.
Thanks to the ACA and my state not being run by petulant toddlers, I was able to enroll in Medicaid after years of uninsured underemployment. I got to see doctors and get long-needed medication and even surgery at no cost to me. (If I’d had a bit more income it would have been at almost no cost to me.) I saw many people in various waiting rooms who looked to be in the same boat. The quality of care was not merely better than nothing, but almost shockingly good.
Now I have a fulltime job with generous private health benefits, but I’m waiting until January to actually use them, to avoid spending the 2016 deductible towards the end of the year only to have to spend the 2017 deductible shortly thereafter.
I have not had to deal with the Marketplace directly, and understand that it’s a problematic outgrowth of our stubborn insistence on “market-based solutions,” but on balance the ACA is a damn sight better than the previous situation. Don’t “repeal and replace” it, because Congress won’t get past the “and.” Amend it where it’s broken.
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