What my family has found is that not only is the coverage crappy from the get-go (very high deductible for a plan we can barely afford, even with the subsidy), then when you go in for “preventive care” (supposedly covered), most of it is NOT covered and one gets a whopping big bill that was not expected.
Reading the fine print, it appears that what “covered” really means even for many components of preventive care is “the cost paid by the consumer will contribute toward meeting the deductible”. But the deductible is so high that what it boils down to is that our well over $800 / month premium* does us almost no good, except for a catastrophic illness or injury. In reality, preventive care is not encouraged: Instead (at least in the short to medium term) it is heavily discouraged (from a financial standpoint.)
*I am under no illusion that I do not pay for the entire premium — the subsidy part is merely paid indirectly.
This is nothing less than a vicious conspiracy (crony capitalism on steroids) to suck money out of a group of people with (collectively) a large pool of money (U.S. middle class) but individually almost no way to fight the theft.
Democrats have been plotting for years how to divest the middle class of the trillions they have saved in retirement plans. Well, they’ve finally figured out one way to do it. Just take all the money they pay for health care and spread it to those who aren’t paying for it, then the middle class doesn’t have a thin dime left to put toward retirement savings.