It seems many of you who object to diaries lamenting the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, must be well insured with minimal cost shifting from your generous employer paid for healthcare.
How else to explain the seeming lack of compassion or regard for the tens of millions of Americans who live in abject fear of maintaining access to healthcare until the miracle of 2014 bears fruit.
Americans (full disclosure, I am one of them), who purchase either small group or individual coverage, are facing brutal premium increases and drastic benefit cuts.
My premium is closing in on $700 a month for bare bones coverage.
Take a look. That's me, I'm category 1. The junk insurance is $545.27 with a $3000 deductible and assorted other huge costs, the prescription drug coverage is another $136.48.
Total monthly: $681.75. For. Junk. Insurance.
And it gets even worse. I have six more months until renewal. The people who sell me the insurance said this morning there is no doubt my insurance could cost close to or more than $800 when I renew in December. Oh. My. God.
Mr. President, where is my affordable, where is my protection? What happens to me and millions more just like me? How do we hang on until 2014?
President Obama knows he is dealing with a predatory industry, but tragically the PPACA keeps them at the very center of our new, reformed, 21st century healthcare system. No public option, no medicare buy-in, we're at the mercy of AHIP. And though some of you don't like to be reminded, Democrats and President Obama own this. To say, "it's better than nothing", is not a winning campaign slogan, if you ask me.
The New York Times is reporting that today at the White House, President Obama is meeting with insurance industry executives to tell them to make nice, play fair, and think twice before raising rates.
President Obama, whose vilification of insurers helped push a landmark health care overhaul through Congress, plans to sternly warn industry executives at a White House meeting on Tuesday against imposing hefty rate increases in anticipation of tightening regulation under the new law, administration officials said Monday.
I'm not the only one worried about how many millions of Americans will be forced to drop their coverage between now and 2014 due to sharply escalating premiums and drastically reduced benefits.
The administration worries that escalating premiums will force more people drop their policies before the law is fully implemented.
Yesterday, a couple of commenters were peeved that they believed I hadn't written about the healthcare catastrophe in New York State. But, they were wrong,I have addressed what is going on in New York.
Since that diary, New York State has repealed file and use, New York continues to have the highest premiums in the nation. Now, due to the repeal of file and use, the insurance commissioner in New York State has the legal authority to review and/or approve rate hikes. Governor Paterson signed this into law a week or so ago, as the New York Times article notes. That said, I do not think anyone expects any insurance commissioners tofreeze rates or cap them until some form of relief kicks in, in 2014.
Those surveyed said they were faced with premium increases averaging 20 percent when they last sought to renew their coverage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit health policy research group, which conducted the survey in March and early April.
While some people switched to less expensive plans that offered less generous coverage, and others negotiated lower prices than their insurers initially requested, the people surveyed still reported an average increase of 13 percent on their health insurance costs.
. . ."The survey shows that the steep increases we have been reading about over the last several months are not just extreme cases," said Drew Altman, the Kaiser foundation’s president and chief executive. He said the increases far outpaced those in the market for large employers buying coverage for their workers.
The findings also underscore the challenges that will continue to be faced by people in the individual market until changes under the new health care law go into effect in 2014, Mr. Altman said. About 14 million people under the age of 65 purchase their coverage in the individual market, according to Kaiser.
So maybe, with luck, when I renew in December, instead of a 30% increase, I'll get hit with say a 17%-20% increase.
I just don't know how millions and millions of Americans will survive until 2014.
This is why I will go to Washington DC on August 4th to tell the stories of Americans who cannot access healthcare and rely on the Free Clinics Association to provide them with something--anything.
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