Bankruptcy Over Unaffordable Coverage – Story

I am 50 years old and have never had health insurance, I always pay out of pocket in FULL for every doctors visit, every ER visit and have always had a reserve of $25,000 dollars saved up through small monthly contributions to draw on in case of emergencies. This is how I figured all American’s should be, responsible. It is NOBODY else’s job to provide you with anything…It took me over 20 years to get this little healthcare only nest egg setup. I have ALWAYS paid my medical bills off, never once have I not.

I make well over the federal poverty level, thus I qualify for NO government help at all. I am a self employed truck driver, running my own small business.

I pay a lot in taxes as it is, including things such as both sides of the social security tax. All the businesses expenses are a lot too, and depending on business needs my income can fluxuate. If the truck needs a lot of work one month it could lower my income for that year a lot while I’m not driving and its in the shop, sometimes it can happen multiple times a year. Add to the mix that its usually thousands of dollars for the work too each time. I’ve had years where I bring home a 100k and years where I bring home far more than that. It isn’t like a steady job where your income stays the same.

It also depends on the loads available at the time. Sometimes loads pay a lot and sometimes you barely break even and sometimes you even lose money on one. If you wait around for a good load you might be waiting for awhile making nothing. Anyone who knows the trucking business knows sometimes you have to move to another location to get a better load and you might not make anything getting there.

I looked into getting health insurance that I don’t really need and the cheapest plan I could get with a high deductible is $900 dollars a month. I signed up for it to avoid paying the increased taxes that the ACA includes.

Problem is now, it is draining my healthcare savings reserve. I’m using it faster than I was contributing to it before. I had hoped it would be cheaper. Even though I make a lot of money I am also heavily in debt from an ex wife, alimony. Divorce is an expensive business, also business expenses still being paid off. Basically lots and lots of loans, so while my income makes people unsympathetic because they think if I made that much I’d have no problems, do keep in mind my debts match my income as it is and I was able to keep a float hoping that in 5 years things would be better as debt got paid off. If you think 100,000+ per year is a lot of money imagine having a debt load quite a bit higher than that.

Lots of people have been in situations where adding even one my bill would break the camels back for a few years while things got paid off, but imagine being in that situation and now you have to add a whole new bill that the government REQUIRES. I could not have gotten a loan for another 900 a month but here I am basically having a forced loan/payment that I never would have been able to qualify for.

Being required to suddenly spend $900 dollars extra a month I do not have doesn’t miraculous make me suddenly have it. I have started the bankruptcy process because I can no longer pay all my debts after adding this new one.

Ironically I’ll likely lose my truck, my business and my income…within a year or two I’ll likely be a zero income person getting free healthcare. I have been self employed my whole life and wouldn’t know how to work for someone anyways. It is why I started my business in the first place. I do admit that I cannot work for anyone else, because soon as a boss says or does something stupid I tell them off. Although that really has nothing to do with the situation just explaining WHY I went off on my own to due my own thing. Now I do believe I’ve spent too many years self employed I’ll never be able to work for anyone again.

What am I to do? Bankrupcy just doesn’t let me file it on one loan/debt to reduce my debt load to offset the ACA. It has to go for all debts, all loans and all assets. I am currently looking at it to restructure things so I can keep going as is in life but I’ll tell you right now this is a direct result of the socialist program we call ACA. If the restructuring fails then I could lose it all. Not having that 900 dollar a month payment would have prevented all of this.

I can’t be the only one this is happening to, a lot of American’s max out their debt based on income. I was fine about 5 years ago, until this whole divorce thing messed me up. My ex took out a lot of loans, add attorney fees and it got me to where I am now. The ACA is the straw that broke this Camel’s back. Of course now my credit will be ruined and it won’t be back to good again until I’m close to 65.

What I don’t understand is how so many American’s can support corporate socialism. Insurance is just a corporate version of socialism when you break it down and look at it. It shouldn’t matter if the government is doing it or a business that benefits from a government requirement.

Definition of Socialism: a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

Everyone pays into it and everyone benefits, the rich pay more and the poor get a cheaper ride on the backs of the rich. It would actually in my opinion be better to get rid of the ACA and just increase the Medicare/Medicaid tax rate and put everyone on it that doesn’t have it through their work.

The ACA really should be tackling the expenses Doctors and especially hospitals charge to keep those prices down. Maybe it should be changed to require hospitals to show here is the cost of something and here is what we charge with a max profit level set on each item. So a Tylenol cannot be charged 80 dollars a pill anymore if 1 pill costs a buck they can only charge a few bucks for it. At least in my opinion the costs should be regulated like a Utility company and a review board needs to approve all price increases. I believe in the free market but if we are required to buy a product it is no longer the free market. That works great for optional services.