Posted on 12/02/2014 9:00:54 PM PST by grundle
Don Benfield of Taylorsville, N.C., makes $11 an hour working for a mobile-home parts business, selling things like replacement doors and windows.
Benfield, 51, doesn't have health insurance.
"I haven't had health care insurance in years, simply because I haven't been able to afford it, especially with food prices, how they went up," he explains.
Benfield's employer does offer health insurance coverage, even though, with fewer than 50 employees, the business is not required to.
"The insurance here through work is $43 a week, which with my rent and other payments and everything, we haven't been able to afford," he says. "If I put my wife on the insurance, it shoots up to $120."
The Affordable Care Act is expected to provide around $10 billion in subsidies this year to make health insurance affordable for low- and middle-income people. But a quirk in the law is denying subsidies to a significant number of low-income people, especially those with families.
Benfield has run up against this quirk. To cover only himself, Benfield would have to pay a little more than $2,200 a year. He says he can't afford that, but that's an affordable amount, according to Obamacare regulations, and that means Benfield could not get subsidies if he tried to get coverage on the Obamacare exchange.
The situation only gets worse if Benfield decided to add his wife to his employer policy. Adding her would nearly triple the annual cost, driving it up to $6,200 a year, almost a quarter of their family income.
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
90% of 0bamaCare has been a “glitch.” What would constitute a failure to a Progressive?
They should have addressed it before they passed a poorly drafted and hastily rushed law.
Whose fault is that?
Medicaid is better than this poorly disguised private health insurance crap that is marketed as covering the American family.
Medicaid has no premiums, $2 co-payments for doctor office visits and $4 co-payments for prescription drug coverage. And no deductibles you have to pay up front before you’re covered.
In Obamacare, they didn’t give us a free market and insurance companies have no financial incentive to give any one a comprehensive health plan that’s truly affordable.
Whose fault is that?
Not those of us who opposed this law in the first place.
They still defend it even though it has more political losers than political winners.
I have no idea why Democrats continue to defend their crap.
People hate it.
His work insurance is $43 a week. That is $2236 a year. Which is about what he’d pay on the exchange. His work allows his wife to join him for $5200 a year total, $1000 less than the $6200 he’d have to pay in an exchange.
If his own health isn’t worth $43 a week, why should I care, much less help him pay for his insurance?
On the other hand, if he remains healthy, that $43 a week is pretty much a waste. But he’s 51 years old, so he’s likely to need health care, and $5200 a year is a steal for that — my insurance costs me about twice that much, and that is with a very generous employer contribution.
If there was a true free market, sure he could shop for the best health plan for his family.
The crap called health insurance offered for sale on the exchanges isn’t worth $43 a week. You still need to pay out of pocket costs before you’re covered.
You have to be crazy or have spare cash to burn to enroll in Obamacare.
Yeah, "and everything." Meaning: lottery tickets, flat-screen t.v., liquor, etc.
If his own health isn’t worth $43 a week, why should I care, much less help him pay for his insurance?
The money-quote of the day!
Regards,
And you can enroll only through the end of February.
If you want to buy later, you’re out of luck.
And I wonder how much the deductibles are even with the subsidies.
Charles, I don’t know your situation, but this man is making $11 an hour. So that $43 is a half a day’s work for him.
The worst, the very very worst thing Obamacare did was do away with “catastrophic” policies, that will only kick in if you really get into high cost medical care.
This man is expected to fork over his money for all kinds of stuff he doesn’t need, like birth control and for all I know sex change operations. (Hey, I made that last part up, but who knows?)
People will not buy what they can’t afford and they’ll be the judge of that.
Life is rough...especially with the existance of LIBs/RINOs/DIMs in positions of authority.
Obamacare added 18 million to the Medicaid rolls.
The copays vary state-to-state -- my state has none BUT SHOULD HAVE except for the most desperate cases.
So, it is half a day out of 5 days. Sure, it is a lot of money, but it is 10% of his earnings, for his health.
The point is that the exchange isn’t doing him any better than the plan is employer has offered him, which probably is more expensive now because of Obamacare.
Correct. A $50,000 weekend vacation is affordable to Rush Limbaugh; a $50 one is affordable to me (sometimes LOL).
Well that happened because there is no free market.
I go to an exchange and I am greeted with a blizzard of plans and prices.
And I have only a short time to make a decision.
Every one of those 18 million people at least are covered without any hassles.
That’s not praise of Obamacare; to the contrary, its an indictment of it.
51 years old and making $11 an hour. I can’t imagine e getting by on that sub-poverty wage. Is he mentally handicapped? Never finished HS? A druggie or con? Or just not the sharpest knife in the drawer? Seems he failed some life basics — learn a trade, be tops in your field, and get ahead.
“90% of 0bamaCare has been a “glitch.” What would constitute a failure to a Progressive?”
Great question.
The ACA is working as designed. It is intended to destroy employer provided health insurance and move toward government “single payer” insurance
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3228600/posts
Is there a Law against getting a Second Job?
I must have missed that one in the Obamacare Bill.
As my Dear Late Mother always said, “there will always be someone better off than you and there will always be someone worse off than you, that’s Life”.
Meanwhile, I’ll keep paying our $1,800 a Month Health Insurance Premium. Might be time for a “Subsidy”.
Do they get those Subsidies from Unicorns or Fairies?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.