Free Republic

The rollout of the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, has been full of snafus and politics. Less discussed are the individual people whose coverage is changing, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. Edith Littlefield Sundby counts herself among those whose coverage is taking a hit. She wrote about her case in a powerful op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Sunday. In her early 60s, Sundby suffers from stage 4 gallbladder cancer. According to her op-ed, less than 2 percent of people with stage 4 gallbladder cancer survive five years after diagnosis. She's had it...

I wanted to let you know that earlier today I received my "Obamacare enrollment packet” from the White House. It contained: · An aspirin and a band-aid. · An 'Obama Hope & Change' bumper sticker · A 'Bush's Fault' yard sign · A 'Blame Republicans first, then anybody and everybody' poster · A 'Tax the Rich' banner · An application for unemployment and a free cellphone · An application for food stamps · A prayer rug · A letter assigning my debt to my grandchildren · And lastly, a coupon for a machine that blows smoke up my ass. Everything...

An average Texas single mom’s letter “thanking” President Obama for Obamacare, and all that it entails, has gone viral. Yolanda (Lana) Vestal posted the letter on her Facebook page, and what started out as a way to vent, became a way for others to share frustration over Obamacare. The single mother of two blasts the president for increased taxes and lavish vacations. The post has received over 63,000 “shares,” according to FreePatriot.org.

Former President Ronald Reagan's liberal activist daughter Patti Davis is asking just what many other people across the United States want to know — why she's losing her insurance. "Could the president please explain why I and others are losing our health ins. plans? Wasn't supposed to happen!" Davis posted on Twitter Friday afternoon.

Editor, Times-Dispatch: I am self-employed and I pay for my own health insurance. I assumed I would pay a surcharge for the Affordable Care Act every month. I assumed incorrectly that I would have the freedom to choose, that my future and security were in my hands. My insurance agent visited my office and asked me what provision of the ACA I wanted to sign up for. I thought he was kidding; he wasn’t. I do not have a choice. My policy will go from $325 a month to more than $900 a month, my coverage will be nowhere near...

Sue Klinkhamer has a problem. It’s called Obamacare. And the irony of her situation is not lost on her. In a recent email addressed to her former boss, Illinois Congressman Bill Foster, and other Democratic colleagues, she wrote: “I spent two years defending Obamacare. I had constituents scream at me, spit at me and call me names that I can’t put in print. The congressman was not re-elected in 2010 mainly because of the anti-Obamacare anger. When the congressman was not re-elected, I also (along with the rest of our staff) lost my job. I was upset that because of...

Rebecca was stunned when she opened her mail last week. Her insurance carrier, Highmark BCBS, said her health insurance premium would rise 40 percent this year and her policy would be canceled on Dec. 1, 2014. She had purchased the policy in 2009, after her husband had passed away from lupus, which he'd contracted 10 years before. His employer's insurance covered virtually all of the $1.1 million cost of his care during the last 66 days of his life. With three children to raise, Rebecca knew how important it was to have good coverage. Her husband's company covered her...

Carissa Brooks went to the Shopping Center on Saturday to buy some thread. She went home with some health insurance. It was an emotional moment for the 36-year-old mother of two. She stumbled upon a health-insurance outreach program by Public Health-Seattle. The department hosted the event to help people obtain coverage through the Affordable Care Act. "It's exciting," Brooks said, after hugging her "in-person assister," the staffer certified to help with enrollment. "I was going to cry." Brooks was able to qualify for Medicaid coverage under the new Affordable Care Act provisions, and she will not have to pay any...

Young people in 45 states will see their health insurance premiums increase under Obamacare because the law relies on the money they pay into the system to offset the cost of caring for older enrollees, according to a new study. Virginia leads the pack, as individuals aged 27 and under will see their health insurance premiums jump by 252.5 percent -- $416.55 -- according to the Heritage Foundation's Center for Data Analysis. Virginians under the age of 50 will see their premiums jump by an even greater percentage, rising from $228 to $991.03. Such increases are not a surprise to...

Rich Sitko can’t wait to buy a new health insurance plan. Sitko, 64, from Essex Fells, now has an indemnity plan from Aetna for which he pays $1,178 per month with a $2,500 deductible. He believes he will find a less costly option on the new health insurance exchange — the online marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act. His new plan, he said, will still most likely cost close to $10,000 a year and won’t have any of his doctors in network. To get a plan similar to the one he has now, he’d actually have to pay more...

American media outlets were finally able to track down a mythical creature — a person who actually signed up for the Obamacare exchanges online. But that person, Chad Henderson, admitted to the Washington Post that the premium for the plan he enrolled in was $175. Ouch! Wasn’t Obamacare supposed to lower premiums? Henderson’s going to pay a $175 premium and he won’t even receive vision or dental insurance. He has contacts, so not having vision insurance is kind of a bum deal. Henderson, as far as we know a healthy, 21-year-old college student at Chattanooga State Community College who lives...

Chad Henderson is the media’s poster boy for Obamacare. Reporters struggled this week to find individuals who said they had been able to enroll in one of the law’s 36 federally run health-insurance exchanges. That changed yesterday, when they found Henderson, a 21-year-old student and part-time child-care worker who lives in Georgia and says that he successfully enrolled himself and his father Bill in insurance plans via the online exchange administered at healthcare.gov. But in an exclusive phone interview this morning with Reason, Chad father's Bill contradicted virtually every major detail of the story the media can't get enough of....

Down in South Texas, health care providers are reporting an unusual problem with the federal marketplace: Many patients don’t have email addresses and, therefore, can’t sign up online. The Brownsville Community Health Center had 50 people show up on Tuesday ready to sign up for health coverage -- many even brought pay stubs and income documentation -- but not a single one of them had an email address. "If you don’t include an email address, they won’t let you through," said Christela Gomez, the special projects coordinator and lead certification application counselor at the center. Although the center considered helping...

FOUNTAIN HILLS, AZ - A Fountain Hills man says he may soon have to get another job just to pay for healthcare insurance under the new Affordable Care Act. Michael Cerpok, is a high school drop-out, one of six kids born to a school teacher, and doesn’t come from a wealthy family. He has run two businesses for more than 25 years and says he may have to do more to literally stay alive. “I've worked hard because I've had to, and I’ve had to, because cancer runs in my family," says Cerpok, who picked his current health insurance based...

Meet Brendan Mahoney, the young man who is saving ObamaCare. He's 30 years old, a third-year law student at the University of Connecticut. He's actually been insured for the past three years--in 2011 and 2012 through a $2,400-a-year school-sponsored health plan, and this year through "a high-deductible, low-premium plan that cost about $39 a month through a UnitedHealthcare subsidiary." But he wanted to see what ObamaCare had to offer. "Once it got running, it was fast," Mahoney tells the Courant. "It really made my day. It's a lot like TurboTax." He obtained insurance through ObamaCare. Now, he says, "if I...