What if I Still Can’t Afford Coverage?
What if i still cant afford coverage under ObamaCare due to monthly bills, child support, etc. What do i do? Is there free insurance somewhere?
Answer
If you can't afford coverage you have a number of options.
First off check out HeatlhCare.Gov and see if you qualify for cost assistance or Medicaid based on your projected Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI). Unfortunately, some states have rejected Medicaid, so this makes it extra hard for people in these states.
If you go with a high deductible health plan you can also use an HSA to get some tax benefits and to help lower your MAGI.
If the lowest-cost plan costs more than 8% of MAGI you qualify for an affordability exemption. This is true even after 2019 when the fee for not having coverage was reduced to $0.
People who are exempt due to affordability (or some hardship exemptions like being denied Medicaid) and those under 30 years old can get a low cost catastrophic plan inside or outside the marketplace.
There isn't always a good answer to not being able to afford coverage, but looking into cost assistance, health savings accounts, Medicaid, and all of your options is going to be your best bet. If everything is still unaffordable, look into exemptions.
Hopefully, other people will post some suggestions below, it's of course not an easy question to answer, and we feel for people finding themselves in this position.
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I cannot afford my premium payments. It cuts me short every month!
You should try looking at other options during next open enrollment, you may find a plan with a lower premium. You could also take another look at the income you reported to the Marketplace, you may be due more upfront assistance than you are getting. Remember assistance is based on Modified Adjusted Gross Income.
I make around 22,000 a year but that’s with tax and because I have no kids I get taxed heavily l on my checksa. I have rent I’m also a part time student a car note and auto insurance but yet I qualified for a $0.00 dollar credit!!!!! That’s crazy!!! I can’t afford it but yet I get penalized for not having it I’m 20!!! For crying out loud
what if your unemployed
If you are unemployed you want to use the Marketplace or Medicaid, but keep in mind your projected income for the year. That is what credits are based on, Medicaid is based on actual current income.
what? we need to be unemployed to have health insurance? who will pay for food, clothes,house and other bills. Obama?
its a joke ur better off without job
thaen u get everything free
That really isn’t true, I know it feels like that sometimes… but America is built on hard work, don’t worry about what the Jone’s are doing aside when it comes discussing on how to create smart policy.
What ever state you live in , there is a medicaid or medical free insurance . If you are not employed, you are more likely to get it. If your income is under a certain amount each month, you can still get it. Contact the social services, ask for a form to fill out.
If you looked at what you have to pay (If you could afford it) and then add in the deductible, the insurance plans under the ACA are ludacris. Furthermore, with exceptions, the 18 – 28 +/- group are the healthiest ones out there and the last ones to need insurance. Regardless of your political persuasion, the Act needs a major overhaul. Like most governmental ideas with good intention, it does nothing but hurt the middleclass.
A zillllllion % AGREED!!!! And w having a small business, we are being TAXED to DEATH!
I agree completely!
My son is 43. He is a diabetic and has lupus. His healthcare costs are eating him alive! ObamaCare wants another $100 per month from him to participate. In spite of his health, he works 3 days a week plus cleans houses once every two weeks. His health is failing and there is no help from Medicaid because he has no dependents. Also, $16 per month for food stamps. No help from any direction. Where is the solution from Obamacare?
The frustrating thing here is that the solution from ObamaCare is Medicaid expansion… which is currently rejected in about 20 states by the GOP leadership in that state. https://obamacarefacts.com/obamacares-medicaid-expansion/
This same reasoning can explain why the food stamp allotments and other assistance in a given state is sparse. Just general GOP ideology that assume people with low income shouldn’t get government help and that private charities will suffice. This leaves me in a position where I am left to suggest local charities, which do exist in real life.
Anyway, hope this doesn’t come off like just a dig on the practicality of Republican ideology, I have a friend with Lupus and personally find this frustrating to say the least.
Only other suggestion is to check where the eligibility levels fall, getting better assistance could be a matter of making a little more or less money (something that sounds like it could be controllable).
Our premiums are huge and it covers practically nothing. We can’t even buy PPO even if we could afford it. Our deductible is $8000 per person. We make enough money not to qualify for anything but most of it goes out in bills so we don’t have it . We literally can’t afford it. So we opted out. If we are going to fork out $ 600 per month and STILL have to pay for drugs and Doctors visits until we meet our annual $8000 decuctible then why not use the $600 dollars a month to pay for drugs and Doctors visits. But the tax penalty right? Ah, what they don’t tell you. They can’t come after you for it. They can only withold it from a refund. No refund, no tax penalty. I adjusted my tax es withheld and they can go F themselves for the tax penalty. Legal robbery.
Why isn’t this question being answered? I want to know what this person is supposed to do!
The question “what should one do when they can’t afford coverage, but the law says they can?” Is not something that can just be answered. Get exemptions, pay the fee, look into catastrophic coverage, look at deduction options, get an HSA, consider total household income, consider who you are filing for, consider the terms of a divorce agreement, consider child support costs, etc.
There is no good answer, so this page is somewhat of a compilation of advice. I am in no way trying to avoid the question, it’s just there is no clear single answer.
I am wondering the same thing. I picked a silver plan of which deductables are completely insane as it is, but Bronze is even worse. Theres no way I could EVER pay the deductable if sick anyhow so the plans worthless to me. I make 28000 per year, i have rent, bills, phone, electric, internet IS necessary nowdays, and everyone needs money to live, if we all just paid bills and never lived life/had fun, we might as well all die. I get no tax credit whatsoever, $200 per month bills make me unable to afford what we need. I cant afford to lose my “refund” either. Refund? Its MY money they used its not a refund, its giving back stolen income, really. I have no answers and it would seem theres no answer. You just live in poverty, dont pay, pay and dont eat, or lose your so called tax refund. They offer no solution! They should be paying our insurance in full. The plans offered are horrible anyhow.
This is ludicrous! Have son in college full time. Has apt and makes $7-8000 a year. We help support him because his earnings pay for his food, gas and electricity. Since we claim him, our crappy income is included. I’m on SSD his father doesn’t make that much. When filed for Obamacare, they want $250 for coverage! Wtf! The catastrophic coverage wasn’t much lower and what good is it! It’s a disgrace! BUT—- if He jumped the fence from Mexico to the U.S., no problem ! They will even give me foodstamps and a place to live!!! What a JOKE
it has nothing to do with helping people besides upper class america has been a slave trade country since its beginnings with that name. if you cant undertand that there was never intention to help anyone besides upperclass people.. can you even understand what im saying upper middle lower? that is already wrong… lower class get the medical needs in order to keep them alive so they can fill really bad jobs. and then middle people ect. get hurt more by plans like this.. so they are stopped from climbing this so called class ladder which is already immoral. but hey everyone is alive.. which is all you need on a 300 milliion person slave farm.
I came on this page looking for REAL advice on what to do because I can’t afford healthcare and afford to live. The only good info I’ve seen so far is from the commenter above, I didn’t realize that they withhold your tax return for the penalty so I too will be adjusting how much is withheld from my paycheck next year when I stop paying into Obamacare. I’m 25, had my own apartment, work 40+ hours a week and make about $24,000/yr before taxes. Last year I enrolled in Obamacare so as not to burden my parents with my health insurance any longer. I thought for sure I would qualify for the credit since I feel quite poor…I nearly live paycheck to paycheck with my very small rent payment of $450/mo. But as soon as I had to start paying $212/mo for health insurance I had to move back home with my mom. I can’t afford to put a roof over my head and insure my health in case of a catastrophic event. So I’m paying $212 every month for crappy coverage and I’ve only been to the doctor once this year for strep throat. I live at home with my mom, I live a very frugal lifestyle, and I work damn hard for this very dependent life so that I am only a burden on my mom by taking up space in her home. I pay for my own vehicle, car insurance, 2 phone bills, a mutual fund, health insurance, dental insurance, and pouring what little I have left over into savings. So the next person who wants to tell me that I come from a generation of entitled little pricks, think again. The standards we are being held to are not possible. We are destined for failure under Obama’s leadership. Everyone on welfare, popping out child after child, getting your phone bills paid for by our tax dollars, YOU’RE WELCOME! Because you choose not to go to work everyday like the rest of us, I have to pay $212/mo to cover your health insurance because we both know you aren’t paying a dime for it. Anyone who stands behind this healthcare plan does not want what’s best for America, they want what is best for THEMSELVES. You are hurting hard working lower middle class people by taking our money and giving it to (replace poor with) lazy unmotivated people. This is why everyone rethinks working so hard, I might as well have a few kids, stop showing up at work and start signing up for welfare programs. That way I’m covered and get to live the kind of life I want because working hard sure isn’t getting me there.
We are in the exact same boat. My Husband and I were living in poverty and making minimum wage on top of paying debt for 2+ years. I finally had enough and quit my job to start my own nonprofit and worked VERY hard to earn a salary. We still make a pretty pathetic combined income despite all of our work but we were at least able to get off Medicaid able to afford our mortgage without borrowing from parents (how embarrassing)! Now this stupid system expects us to pay $450/month PLUS a $5000 deductable if we ever are in a situation where, you know, we would actually NEED health coverage. Well, that’s just not possible if we want to keep a roof over our head and freed ourselves, pay debt and loans and other bills. So, we’ll just opt out, right?! NOPE… Because that would cost us 5% of our annual income. Are you crazy!!!??? Are you trying to drive us into poverty?!? I’ve done everything I was told to do as an American, get an education, work hard, contribute to good in this country and you’ll achieve you dreams. Well this is a NIGHTMARE
you should jump on your parents coverage. I think you can stay on theirs until you’re 25
My parents can’t even afford their insurance as working middle class….
So there’s not a lot to jump onto.
I pay about $200/m and I got strep throat and had to pay about $80 for a quick test and antibiotics,…..
currently looking into ways to pay off my tax penalties from last year! No refund AND it looks like I owe about $700 for losing my insurance last year due to a change in jobs (never unemployed).
Any fun/helpful facts for me?
Lots of fun helpful facts: http://factmyth.com/
… although probably none to help with that issue.
I think there is a lot to work on with the ACA as mentioned, but a lot of what you are discussing is high healthcare costs and high insurance costs. We can’t remove the ACA from this, but we also have to realize that the ACA isn’t the only cause of the healthcare crisis. Google “healthcare crisis”, it has been a thing for a long time. Fingers crossed the next President gives us a solution that addresses the concerns of the people on this page without putting us back at square one.
move to canada..free healthcare. This government is corrupt always has been always will be. You did notice our senate and house of representatives are now demanding raises because $174,000 isn’t enough to live on right? There needs to be a revolution. The we the people in the constitution did not mean we the government.
This is crazy, I’ll say we should all stop paying for this crap! Only 20 millons are on obama care and we are paying for the rest of the people, really? I was paying $1044 a month for 4 people, crappie insurance, unbelievable deductibles, that you can only reach if you get a brain surgery, die and bring back to live, then, you will probably, reach the deductible. Now , my new premium is $1546 a month, no vision or dental, ha ha what a joke! We all go 2 times a year to the doctor , annual exam, gynecology and mammogram fir me, thats it! You know what, I’ll start paying out of my pocket for what I need , even if it takes me until i get my medicaid. Btw, i make over 100k a year, own a small business, have 1 dependant, paying 2 car loans, a mortgage, credit cards , bills, insursnce snd so and so. I say NO, you pay for the rest of the people,im tired to get robbed! ! Stop paying Obama care! !!!
What I’d like to know is if this ludicrous Obamacare is repealed, can we get our penalty(ransom) money back? I, like almost everyone else, can’t come close to affording this absurd TAX. What rights do WE have? I agree an earlier message that it is much more lucrative to not work, and have everything given to you. It’s all BS!!!
You should be eligible to stay on you parent’s plan until you are 26. I am 27 I made less then you $18, 793 last year which after taxes I brought home $13,614. I have to rob Peter to pay Paul I can’t afford to pay any extra bills especially the quoted $708 for the year plus the high deductible I’d have to pay just to use the policy. I like the idea of the ACA; however, when put into action part time people who are not benefit eligible employees, where ever they work get the short end of the stick. If the deductibles did not exist, I could see it as a benefit, but why pay money for something you can’t afford to use? It is just as good as not having insurance at all. I am sure the IRS will catch up with me soon, and I will be just as screwed, but at least I will only pay about $400-$500 for my lack of coverage leaving me with $208 dollars in savings.
Sorry lost train of thought, I can’t afford to get insurance through work for both of us but can’t afford Obama care for both of us either with mortgage car payment, electric bill, water bill, daily living expenses, food , car insurances, and paying I.R.S for last couple years because we made a little more than we thought, if this keeps going we will lose our house, all together even with paying monthly premiums and having to pay at least a $100 a month to even go to doctor because they won’t write refills even on blood pressure medicine, and still owing I.R.S. I will be living on the streets not too long from now, or in my car, or divorced because they definitely do more for you if your not married
My friend is a single mom who dosen’t get ObamaCare and can’t afford health insurance and when she files her taxes she states that and she hasn’t been penalized yet.
Did you vote for obama? Socialism doesn’t work.
Ur rite doesn’t work here , bt works in Canada & other European countries. Do u knw wht real socialism is s??
Yeah but those countries have half to 1/10 the population America has we have 320 million people so the ideas of socialism just doesn’t work in a large country like us.
Socialism would be paying a little extra in taxes, no deductibles, no fees, medical/health care for all, no penalties. We haven’t tried this yet.
Theres socialism and then theres having a heart. I live in New Zealand and we have free hospital care and highly subsidized doctors and medicines. Americas system is broken. Too much greed and corruption. God help you guys, I have no clue how you would have a chance to fix this. And it sure wont be the Democrats.
medicare is the best program. Infrastructure cost 4% compared to private insurance overhead of 23%. The actual Medicare approved rate is about 60% to the provider. Premiums are $110 to the insured. program is paid through our tax code withholding. Medicare works!
Private insurance sucks, expensive, high deductibles, limited choices.
While many people are satisfied with Medicare coverage, I think it is important that people understand just how expensive Medicare is for the low income elderly and disabled, those on restricted SSI or SSDI incomes. Some states have found ways to improve coverage for those who are considered “Dual Eligible.” However, for the most part, this group who often have the greatest health needs and have some of the least financial resources, yet, they are still expected to pay premiums, copays, and deductibles and/or exhaust their pensions, savings, and assets in order to get that coverage. Even Medicare has it’s shortcomings and for those affected by them, they would strongly disagree that “Medicare Works!” for them.
You would definitely qualify. There is possibly an error on the page – you do qualify for a tax credit at only $22000 income per year
Yeah, you’re being claimed as a dependent by someone who also makes money
I make around 22,000 a year but that’s with tax and because I have no kids I get taxed heavily l on my checksa. I have rent I’m also a part time student a car note and auto insurance but yet I qualified for a $0.00 dollar credit!!!!! That’s crazy!!! I can’t afford it but yet I get penalized for not having it I’m 20!!! For crying out loud
Gee-and still no response to this.
Or to MY question about what’s being done about the fact that I purchase in the individual market, my premium has MORE than doubled, I am ineligible in my state for assistance (the cutoff is 36K here), AND under the current structure my premiums aren’t even tax deductible-which means AFTER my 5K a year expenditure I STILL pay a marginal rate of 25% on that as income-bringing my total cost for this boondoggle to well over 500 per month.
Any explanation? Ever? Or will my comments just keep being deleted here?
As you can imagine there are a ton of comments on a site like this. No one ever gets deleted and no one ever gets ignored (at least not on purpose). We do however pre-approve comments, so posting isn’t immediate.
To your point, you should qualify for generous tax credits based on your income. It seems like you might be shopping outside of open enrollment (you can only enroll in subsidized ACA coverage during open enrollment).
That last line should cover the rest of the comment, as cost assistance is based on the federal poverty level, you make 1/2 what the cut off is, it’s not 36k it’s over 45k. And as far as tax implications and insurance premiums not being tax-deductible… yes I agree that is lame.
If you factor in all costs in America we have, for the lower income bracket, what amounts to the basics costing close to every last penny. I am not a fan of this, but I am a fan of healthcare reform, and it seems you may benefit from calling healthcare.gov and getting some straight information from them for next enrollment. Too many odd things not adding up with the above statement. Not dissing you, I get the frustration, just getting that red flag about the numbers you are quoting.
I hate Obamacare. I cannot afford it and the policy stinks. How did we let the Democrats get away with this unbelievable nonsense. I used to have a good insurance plan that did not have an outrageous premium. Thank you Mr. Obama. You have now made my life miserable. Pray that Mr. Trump can overhaul this crap. NASTY.
My same problem.
I just looked at enrolling in Obamacare for 2018. I make 10,000.00 a year and I only get 26.00 tax credit and my lowest premiums are going to be 250 a month with a 7,000.00 deductible. I can’t believe it! What kind of scam is Obamacare?
That doesn’t add up. If you make $10k then you should get free health insurance under Medicaid. You likely live in a red state that refused and rejected Medicaid expansion and thus you don’t actually qualify for any assistance since they rejected Medicaid and you are under the level for getting tax credits.
I.e. “it isn’t ObamaCare that is putting you in a bad situation, that would be your Republican state leaders.”
Now, with that said, I’m not saying the ACA didn’t have an effect on rising costs. It did. Both parties need to stop pushing divisive messages and work together to get this right so the end result is affordable coverage. Politics aside, the situation you are in isn’t acceptable.
This Obama Care facts “person” is a joke!!! Just trying to get us to drink the mighty Obama kool aid!!! Guess what??? We refuse to drink it anymore!!! I never did…he’s nothing but a liar and has turned our country into a socialist country!!! Hell…we’re inches away from being a country ruled by a monarch or dictator. I unfortunately are on SSDI and I have to pay $105 a month for Medicare…I have to get a supplement insurance cuz Medicare doesn’t pay for half of what I need. My old insurance I paid $42 a month for. This year it isn’t being offered so I had to get a new one and the cheapest was $75. So now I’m paying almost $200 a month on health care. On my old plan I paid $65 a month on the meds I need. Now I’m paying $190 for the meds I need. By the time I finish paying all my bills I have about $150 left for the rest of the month. That doesn’t include food…gas and Dr appointments. Guess what??? Here’s the real kick in the ass…I male FOURTY DOLLARS TOO MUCH FOR MEDICAID AND FOOD STAMPS!!! FOURTY!!! WTF???!!! I worked for 20yrs and paid my taxes and now that I do need help I CAN’T GET IT!!! My roommate has to get yalls joke of insurance and he can’t afford it!!! He doesn’t even go to the dr!!! He told me I have to pay am extra $100 for electricity or get another heater to keep warm!!! I chose the heater and guess what??? I AM FREEZING!!! I LIVE IN A TRAILER IN NC AND IT’S BEEN SNOWING!!! So now I have to figure out which meds I can “do without” to save money. I SHOP AT THE DOLLOR TREE TO GET MY FOOD AND THEY DON’T HAVE GOOD NUTRITIONAL FOOD!!! OBAMACARE IS A JOKE AND A RIP OFF AS IS OBAMA HIMSELF!!! HE HASN’T DONE SHIT FOR OUR COUNTRY EXCEPT MADE US “LITTLE” PEOPLE SUFFER AND BREAK US…NOT TO MENTION THE LAUGHING STOCK OF THE ENTIRE WORLD!!! WHY DOESN’T HE FIVE SOMEOF HIS MILLIONS TO US??? BETTER YET PUT HIS $450K A MONTH RETIREMENT MONEY???!!! ALMOST FORGOT…NOW HE’S LETTING IN MILLIONS OF REFUGEES AND ARE GONNA GIVE THEM EVERYTHING AND SUPPORT THEM!!! WHAT ABOUT THE VETERANS THAT ARE HOMELESS??? WHAT ABOUT OUR STARVING CHILDREN??? WHAT ABOUT US “LITTLE” PEOPLE??? HE NEEDS TO TAKE CARE OF US BEFORE HE TAKES CARE OF ANYONE ELSE!!!
In what universe is insulting the person who hits the approve comment button a good idea? Anywhoo. Everyone gets a voice. Just remember I have to read all these to make sure you are human and not spam bots, and that is time I could be adding awesome content on how middle-class Americans struggling can get a better deal.
Signed up for 2015. Tax credit was $ 983 per month – paid $540 a month for my portion of insurance premium. Fast forward to March 2016. We now have to pay back $2,600+ to IRS.
This is due to (we think) second lowest silver cost plan (SLSCP)setting the amount you are actually going to receive ,which varies depending on where you live. Healthcare.gov never mentioned this when we processed our application. We contacted healthcare.gov and they could not even explain what SLCSP is. They said to contact IRS. We had already signed up for 2016 and SLCSP was again, not part of the equation.
The advanced resolution team (misnomer,by the way)also said they entered our income at $36k for 2015 (we have 3 sources of of income and they left one source out)and not even close to what we entered as income. We provided documentation to verify income after we signed up to VERIFY our application and apparently they don’t understand VERIFY.
Almost 50% of people signed up on healthcare.gov for 2014 had to refund money to IRS. Also look up how many people on obamacare did not pay their insurance premiums. Maybe obama’s friends should not have gotten the no-bid contract for setting up this disaster
I hope this commentator side gig involves free health insurance. Kudos to you for taking this verbal beat down from your fellow disgruntled Americans.
I appreciate the kind words.
ACA? What a joke…as others have written if your unemployed, on food stamps, have several kids Everything is paid for-Yes…by us…the middle working class…so they can thank ‘us’ for their Free cell phones, free housing and health care while the rest of us tries to meet the bear minimum of survival…because I made too much one year I ended up paying $2,000 to the IRS…thanks Obama Care…affordable? I’m a single woman who is a breast cancer survivor but still can’t afford their so called affordable premium of $300.00 oh and none of my doctors take their crappy insurance…basically, I have to go uninsured…what choice do I have…just knowing I’m Not alone gives me some peace to a degree…but this isn’t fair…why are so many of us Americans penalized for trying to do the right thing? So disheartening..
Only one question to ask about government involvement in the healthcare industry in 2017: Pretend as if Obamacare is working and watch it turn into pure government-provided system at a cost of trillions that we don’t have, OR try something, heck anything else. I vote for anything else.
So, for real, there are like 20 million newly insured who depend on this and some of the patient protections are vital. There are lots of reform options out there, I wish people would stop trying to solve this issue with a sledge hammer. Why just call for repeal when one could call for repeal+keep key provisions or repeal+universal catastrophic or a public option or a more robust single payer with or without supplemental.
Amen and damn straight! I agree with everything you said. Its insane, they have millions for doing nothing but mess up a country, we have nothing! They should be forced to hand over their excess money to us, the people who cant afford obamacare.
ObamaCare is a joke.
It caters to the low income and encourages individuals not work.
It screws the middle class in every way.
I am now paying 750.00 a month for the Kaiser no deductible plan.
If I selected the High Deductible Plan I would be paying 5500.00 a year 458.00 a month, which has terrible benefits. How can the hard working middle class get ahead having to pay these kind of premiums? I don’t expect insurance to be free, but don’t like to feel like I am paying high premiums to support others that are milking the system and not working that could otherwise be working just to take advantage of our failed Obama Care Benefit system. It is also funny how so many have voted for Obama then complain about medical insurance and everything else in the country that have failed under his leadership.
We’re paying $1,069/month for a family of 4 to have insurance. With $750 deductibles. We make less than $90,000 a year. So we’re basically paying another mortgage payment and are plowing through our savings just to make ends meat now. Oh the best part with Obamacare… You can’t change your insurance if you can’t afford it unless its during an enrollment period. That’s 4 months away right now. However, if one of us quick our jobs right now, then we’d qualify to drop our insurance. Obamacare has ruined healthcare.
AMEN
You are absolutely right. Pay 10k for premiums so I can have a 10K deductible. Yeah, 20k hits the upper middle class hard too. No help with college tuition or medical. Alternative minimum tax means little deductions on my 1040. Frustrated to the point of wanting a divorce so I can go on welfare and live with my husband as a boyfriend. Seriously.
While we are all struggling to come up with any idea of how to pay for health care. Lets not forget that the CEO’s of all of the Insurance Companies and their Special Interest cronies are MAKING $30 to $40 MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! INSURANCE COMPANIES ARE THE DEVIL INCARNATE!!!!!!!!!!! IT IS DISGUSTING THE GREED FROM THE TOP OF THIS GOVERNMENT TO THE TOP OF THE INDUSTRY LEADERS .
THEY MAKE MILLIONS OFF OF OUR SWEAT AND LET CHILDREN IN THIS COUNTRY STARVE. WHEN THEY DO DONATE ANYTHING TO ANY CHARITIES IT IS TO TRY TO LOOK GOOD FOR THE PUBLIC NOT FOR THE BENEFIT OF ANYONE ELSE OH AND FOR THE TAX BREAKS THEY GET. I AM READY TO BE A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD. IT IS TIME FOR THE GOVERNMENT FOR THE PEOPLE BY THE PEOPLE TO REALLY EXIST !!!!!!!!!!! NOT FOR THE RICH FOR THE ALL!!!!!!!! GREED GREED GREED WHILE PEOPLE STARVE IT IS DISGUSTING !!!!!!!
Sadly, so many of you have echoed my sentiments exactly. Obama Care sucks beyond words. If I had a low paying job with 5 kids I’d be set. But I have a decent paying job through a temp agency that offers preventive care only (which I have found to be referred to as a Skinny Plan). Which is absolutely useless to me. Preventive pays for mammos, colonoscopy, pap tests etc. Problem is I can’t make an appointment for tests because the coverage doesn’t pay for doctor visits, blood work or prescriptions. I can’t afford the $200 office visit. You can’t have a test performed without a script from your doctor. I have high blood pressure and ran out of my medication months ago. I keep praying to the Lord I don’t stroke out. My rent is $1,300 a month. Even with the assistance Obama Care will give me I still can’t afford a premium of $371 with a $3,000 deductible plus additional money for dental coverage . I have never spent $3,000 on medical expenses in a year in my life! Between $1,300 rent, electric, phone, and basic necessities I can’t afford medical insurance. The middle class are royally screwed. There is nothing out there to help me. I am totally lost with no where to turn,
What an idiotic, uninformed answer. My premium is increasing by 62% and I can no longer afford coverage. There ARE NO options. The ACA has crushed me. Do you care? No, you don’t.
Why, if I didn’t care, would I spend my days answering questions about the ACA. I would strongly suggest shopping around, looking into HSAs and other tax related vehicles, look into assistance, look into exemptions, and look into anything else you can to curb your costs.
It is easy for you to say you need to HSA, or this or that. You might be one of those government boondogle wizards that can figure out all the govt snafus and legaleeze, but most american’s aren’t.
They are confused as hell with the ACA and the reason that most can’t find solutions is primarily because there are none, or the solutions that are available are too well hidden under a huge conviluted mess.
Obamacare is literally killing people who can’t afford insurance or life saving medicine they need. And no that isn’t just more talk, it is really happening now as I have researched this whole ACA topic with much consistancy for about a year and a half now.
People just poo pooed Michelle Bachmann when she said that Obamacare would literally kill people, and now that it has, no one is saying a thing about it.
And how come Obama who came up with the ACA, congress who passed the bill without reading it, or the supreme court who made an unconstitutional act (forcing people to buy something) constitutional by calling it a tax, aren’t being held responsible for any of this???
I appreciate your responses to those you have chosen to respond to, but a lot of your responses sound more like you are just being a yes man and an appologist for Obama and the ACA than you are actually answering anything. Please!
Obamacarefacts: “Why, if I didn’t care, would I spend my days answering questions about the ACA. I would strongly suggest shopping around, looking into HSAs and other tax related vehicles, look into assistance, look into exemptions, and look into anything else you can to curb your costs.”
You spend your days answering these questions because that’s your job and you receive payment to do so, get real. The prices are too high period and saying “I know it’s expensive, but the government (i.e. the people) will give you subsidies” is a bullshit bandaid that is destined to fail. These costs will be climbing at ridiculous rates every single year, with 3 major companies dropping out this year that will reduce competition. Competition drives the market down, so naturally costs will increase. As time goes on, more will drop out and the cost will continue to rise at unprecedented levels. This is a house of cards that will eventually fall under it’s own weight. I refuse to pay for health insurance because it is a god damn rip off. I’m not paying 25% of my income to health insurance. I’m not cooking the books to put that burden on others. I will simply pay for my own minor medical issues that I never seem to have anyway. God forbid I get diabetes or Congestive heart failure or some other condition, luckily that will qualify as a life changing event and I can get coverage for that kind of stuff then. I am not going to throw my money into the wind waiting for that to happen. I never get tax returns anyway so I’m conditioned to not expect them like most americans who already can’t afford anything until they get those refunds. I’ll put that money into a retirment plan that will benefit ME since it’s MY MONEY.
Curb the cost? Or do you mean ask for help when we shouldn’t have to? There is people who do not want anything to do with hand outs so they can be labeled as property of the government. When you need help working harder should do the trick not hand outs. As your options grow thin even in your responses your only solution is to ask for hand out to justify the corruption at play. How about we make proper funds to compensate inflation. Rid our selves of world problems that cost more for us while politicians get more for the rise of cost due to there failed policies and desisions. If I don’t do my job am fired and go with out. They get a raise while you sit back and defend them and blame republicans as though we don’t see it’s democrate White House that are in office. They use you as mediator and mean while help foreign doctors come here to lower quality of doctors. I have been to a hospital and it’s a joke the smarts thies people say they have. “Organizational chaos ” with no communication. Lack of care and with a slogan of “am only trying to help”. Well they don’t. Drug sales men is there job. Truth hidden from us in fear of loosing there doctors license. Malpractice is what I call it from the top to bottom. Mean while Floride is good for us but is considered so dangerous it’s controlled by government and only given to water company’s and toothpaste makers. What the hell is going on here where this is considered sanity and not treason to the people. I want my Jewish doctor who took notes asked questions and gave answers back. Lol they left because there not stupid to be fooled or scared by government to do there bidding. Take a look at majority of doctors now and they come from communism and well trained at that. Or go on YouTube and listen to Obama and compare to what he said and what is happening now am sure we would have said no. Wait I did say no. And now am a racist man who loves his country and that is considered against the law and terrorism. Wow it sucks being right thies days and cool to be wrong. HELLO!
ObamacareFacts.com is a completely independent website that tries to provide the most thorough information and help answer people’s questions. Thus the accusation that “They use you as mediator” isn’t accurate. The information and comments posted here are moderated, but it isn’t “used” by anyone except the owners (as a private business), people who come here to ask questions (because they hope to find an answer), and people who want to complain about the ACA (which this website can’t actually do anything about except approve them to exist in these threads). If you have problems with the law and how it affects you then absolutely contact the people who can change it: your state and federal elected legislative representatives. They are the only ones who can actually amend of write healthcare reform legislation.
Do you hear how many things “we” need to look into just to get a few extra dollars taken off the top? SICKENING a repeal is the ONLY thing that is going to work,you say you wish it wasnt a sledge hammer solution everyone comes up with..well please tell us how would you fix these issues without one? because before the ACA came into effect almost NOBODY from the middle class struggle like they struggle now..so repeal it and go back to the system we already had in place..yes it isnt great and still isnt all that affordable but its 1000% better then this theives idea of “affordable care”
100%. IF I quit my job, I could afford it. As it is with the price hike, my premium would be higher than my mortgage payment. It’s total bullshit. Exemptions, etc….None of it works if you are employed and work your fair share.
Please tell me where you live that your mortgage is cheaper than your premiums, because I would like to move there. To rent a one-bedroom apartment in my area (SF bay area) you need a minimum of $4,000/month (not exaggerating) unless you want to live in the Tenderloin with all the drug dealers–in which case you can find a 1B/1B for 3,300. Most people I know are renting ROOMS for 2,500/month or SPLITTING ROOMS for 1,500.–Yes, I’m talking about grown-a** people. That’s why at 35 years old and despite working 50+ hours a week as a corporate attorney, I had to move back home with my parents in order to pay my bills (including health care premiums) and law school loans and still be able to save a tiny bit for my miserable future. (I get no tax breaks, deductions etc.) Essentially, I live the lifestyle of a loser who lives with her parents despite the fact that I work full-time at a job that historically has allowed for a grand lifestyle and pay all my bills and loans. Count your blessings–You could be living at home with Mom and Dad at 35. Obamacare sucks for a lot of people, but everyone here posting is acting like the republicans would have gotten them a better deal. (If anything, they’re the ones that screwed up this bill). For those angry, healthy people saying that they never go to the doctor, I feel your pain, but you never know what can happen. I’ve been paying for insurance my entire adult life–I’m thin, fit, eat healthy, and never go to the doctor. I’m tired of people who don’t take care of themselves (and get diseases like diabetes from consuming shocking amounts of sugar and junk and who never exercise) driving up the costs for the rest of us. (E.g. cost of an obese kid under medicaid in CA is 4X that of a kid with normal weight). However, life can change in an instant (even for young healthy people), and it would be terrible if you can’t get any coverage because of your “pre-existing” condition or an accident. More importantly, I’m disgusted by the astromonical cost of prescription drugs and health care services. If anything, we should be pissed at Congress for standing by and doing nothing about those outrageous costs (e.g. 1k/pill for hepatitis C medication- are you f-ing kidding me?) Again, Obamacare is a disappointment for a lot of people, but let’s not forget a lot of those same people (including some of those posting here) wouldn’t be able to get insurance at all without it due to their pre-existing conditions and certainly wouldn’t be able to ever afford 1k/per pill out of pocket. The problem is the people keep voting idiots into the house and senate who do nothing about the broken system–So, we deserve the crappy programs we have. Sigh…As you can tell, I have mixed emotions.
You can’t be serious? Asking where premiums are higher than mortgage payments while you live in THE most expensive area of the US. I live in Raleigh, NC. My mortgage payment on our 2200 sq. ft. home is $998 per month. Our EMPLOYER based premium for a family of 5 = $1054. The exchange is even higher. No subsidies, we earn too much. We were forced to a payment HIGHER than our mortgage payment in 2016. In 2017 I said he’ll no and dropped coverage. The “family glitch” is killing American families just like Obamacare is slowly tanking the middle class economy. Furthermore we’ve found a lot of doctors give huge cash discounts, better prices than thier pre-negotiated rates with insurers. We also found how much the medical community hates insurance companies. I don’t care where you stand politically, to be forced into a FOR PROFIT insurance product, with a goal of returns to shareholders, is morally bankrupt. People’s health and well being should not be for the profit of middle men insurance industry executives. As for the health care providers, compensation is NOT the same as profit. Doctors will still get thiers. I’ll pay a doctor. I’m not paying the government sponsored middle man anymore. To hell with the health insurance industry in America PERIOD. The only explanation for any of this forced purchase of a private market product is a return to shareholders and what are we seeing them do when it’s not profitable anymore? They drop out. This US health market as it exists today must be destroyed. Failure is an understatement.
I am super late in this discussion but I am currently looking for answers to my current situation and i keep finding this diarrhea/vomit spewing from your keyboard. I am struggling with the whole healthcare thing as of late and have come across many posts ALL funneling to this website. The responses are all classics examples of deflection and regurgitating all the crap you were told in training. Even though throughout your responses you’ve pointed out how you are not associated with the government yet every one of your answers has only completely biased blanket statements that never specifically reply to ANY questions. There are a crap ton of people who cannot afford the premiums but make too much to afford any assistance. If you go on healthcare.gov and attempt to get assistance they will ask you questions which will help find out if you qualify. But if you aren’t a single parent, a minority or disabled you won’t qualify. Also, your responses seem to ask people to check the website for exemption like the government is on our side. You remind me of a new employee who actually believe the bs your multilevel marketing coach told you. HSA is one of the most stupid things ever. I have to pay my premiums AND pay money in that AND lose it at the end of the year! Yaaay! I wanted this originally, but this is not the aca Obama envisioned yet he let it go through anyway. Most Americans are getting screwed with this. Also, my children’s PCP and my own are not available on ANY of the plans offered to me. My children will have their doctor and no plan will tell me otherwise. It’s also cheaper to pay the fee at maximum than a monthly premium. The lowest plan offered to me was 650 a month. Also pretty much all of the plans require you to pay such a high deductible there is no point to pay a premium because you gotta pay almost the full cost of the visit. And I imagine every single year they’re gonna say, “oh your plan won’t be available next year so you need to change.” Guess what, a lot of these policies require you to have the insurance for a specific amount of time to even be covered for certain procedures. I had two procedures I needed done and went and did them. Was told how much to pay and paid. Then got a beautiful letter stating I owed another 500 because I didn’t have the insurance for a year. So, I am at my white end here trying to find answers only becoming an angry person because you decide to create a website stating the same “facts” that work in theory but don’t in operation. Not to mention all of the frankly non layman big boy words you used for all of the “options” that normal people have no inkling what you’re talking about. If you’re trying to get people to WANT this thing you are doing an awful job. If your job is to prove you have the ability to create a satirical website and see if ou can respond to comments you have succeeded. I will applaud your ability to stay true to your Crusade though.
Thank you for the kind words. 😐
We really are trying our best here. And this is a big site with lots and lots of advice. We agree people are struggling and the costs are difficult, but as far as an HSA goes… the tax-free-in tax-free-out quality is pretty amazing. If you don’t think so, I’d get to writing Paul Ryan the GOP yesterday as their new plan is centered around HSAs.
This is ridiculous! ObamaCare or MassHealth (when i was trying to find something I could afford the ObamaCare site sent me back home to MassHealth) do not take into consideration people’s living expenses. Some make too much to qualify for the exemptions, however we can’t afford the “affordable plans” offered to us, nor can we afford the shared responsibility fee nor the fine for not having the insurance! Should we therefore sell our homes that we have worked very hard to get? I really wish I could afford something. I wear glasses and am at high risk for glaucoma but can’t afford eye exams or new glasses. The glasses i am wearing now I bought before I got divorced 7 years ago. So no, the ACA hasn’t helped me at all. I would have used my tax refund to go get my eyes checked and purchase a new pair of glasses, but now I will be paying fines and shared responsibility fees instead. Again, my hard work has earned me too much for help and not enough not to worry about it! Was just managing to keep my head above water but find that the ACA is the anchor pulling me under
I told market place from jump street I can not afford premiums
I’m sorry is all I hear from them….. How can ppl keep there homes with such demand on paying high premiums.
A silver BCN insurance plan for my husband and I age 62 & 51 costs us $1100 a month with a 7500k co-insurance.
So yea. Our house payment is less and I need a knee replacement and can’t get it because the hospital wants the co-insurance up front. Can’t work as a LPN nurse because my knee is bone on bone and their are no desk/case management jobs avail in our area.
So now going on 3 years without a job, but my husband makes just over the amount to qualify for subsidies as a self employed man. We are about to lose everything. If I could just get my knee replacement and get back to work we might be able to make it-but highly doubtful anymore.
We think of just giving up every day. Seriously we are living to pay healthcare costs and can’t get caught up. This $1100 bill every month that covers hardly anything is killing us.
No quality of life anymore. None. What’s the point?
We need a solution the gives everyone decent healthcare, not just the poor and not just the wealthy.
I give up.
I can’t afford medical insurance for me and my son, medicaid denied my application, and I have medical conditions, Asthma, Lupus, arthritic pain. I need help. But the medical insurance is out of reach for me. I have car payments, car insurance, rent, gas, water and electric bills. How can I get free medical assistance?
Vote Trump, our only answer
Vote Trump?! All you Trump Trashionals who think trump is going to liberate you from the trailer parks and section-8 housing are in for the biggest con ever. He has been ripping off hard working Americans his entire life. Duh! Rich folks have lawyers, that’s why you are the target of his deception. Government does the same thing except they screw the middle class. Do you really think as president he will have a sudden change of heart?? OMG! If you really think so, you deserve the life of the white-trash you identify with.
ACA is a mandatory tax designed to eradicate the middle-class. Without a middle class you have an oligarchy and no one to vote against it.
I worked my ass off working full-time while going to college nights. All while raising a family. I finally made it to 100k just a few years ago and quickly discovered that the ACA had diminished a respectable salary to nothing more than the perfect ‘tax-bracket’ for Obamacare. I now make 100k and also cannot afford the insanely over-priced insurance dictated by the ACA. So sad. Mortgage, car pyts, student loans, state college tuition for 2 kids, plus, my elderly parents live with me as well. I have to pay for the bare bones HMO plan at $900 per month with a $13,700 deductible. As you know, the plan doesn’t cover anything until you pay the 13,700. By the time I pay the premium and deduc, it’s 27,000 per year. And no tax deductions. I don’t even spend this much a year on my mortgage and property taxes. Something is seriously wrong with this picture.
Sadly, there is no good answer, however, ACA definitely needs to be abolished. As some have pointed out, this country caters to the poor, screws the middle class and leaves the the ‘1-percenters’ with even more. It’s all part of the grand scheme to accelerate the separation of wealth. Clinton is no prize but vote for trump if you want to escalate the process. Then we’ll all be eating out of trash cans.
Apparently many people just don’t understand how economics works.
It’s hard to say where to start. But let’s try this…..
First thing first is ALL disabled and mentally or physically impaired should be provided for.
Our economy is being fueled by the taxes we pay. If you don’t make much money you don’t pay much. Today we are close to having more people on some sort of government assistance Not including ACA. Than pay taxes.
The middle class is the ONLY class that the government can go after!!!!
Most people do not understand that wealthy people absolutely pay their fair share in taxes. What they don’t understand is that they are taxed at a higher rate than anyone else depending on their wealth. If they own a business, people don’t see that they are paying even more!!! They may or may not pay personal taxes bc of how much they have made or LOST in their businesses. However their businesses are ALL paying taxes.
When is the last time you saw a poor person employ people?? It takes wealthy people to start businesses and hire people who also spend money and pay taxes to keep the economy going. Without businesses there are no jobs and no tax dollars being paid. We can not keep expanding social programs (which costs tax dollars) and not have job creation. The math doesn’t work.
I own a small business and can’t afford my health coverage!! In process of selling my home and downsizing because I am a single father with an average medical plan paid for by myself ( because no plans available for my small business)
Plan is $774.00 per month. Which last time I checked was an average mortgage payment.
I am not saying that Donald Trump is the answer to this, however I can tell you that the United States Government is an astonishingly huge business. A business that keeps charging its EMPLOYEES (tax payers) more and more and more. They keep expanding social programs and welfare and disability in record numbers. So if you think a career politician is going to do anything different than what is happening now you are wrong. I can tell you that Obama has never ran anything before he ran the United States of America!! Obama as far as I can tell has zero business experience of any kind!!!
So I guess the thought that a hugely successful businessman (Trump) may actually do a better job at running this Giant businesses than Hillary or Obama!!!
BTW…
Donald Trump had all the money he needs for generations to come. He doesn’t need to make back door deals or take donations in return for special contracts or tax breaks or a laundry list of other corruption that seems to be the standard today. Ask yourself why all these career politicians whom have in general very average salaries seem to retire even after just a few short years with millions and millions of dollars.
In short, our government today is broke. If we were not the United States Government and were a corporation we would be bankrupt and the “government ” would have shut us down!!!
We need a monumental change and need it fast. We will not get it with Hillary we know for a fact
Not paying your penalty, not buying your insurance. Trump just signed an executive order. This will end. I claimed more this year in taxes. Usually I claim zero. But I claimed more so I could break even instead of getting money back, because it would’ve went to paying a penalty anyhow.
He might wave the fee this year. Nothing the government loves more than a giant deficit… which you know, is what happens when people don’t pay their taxes (fee is a tax, although, knowing what I know now, I don’t think I would have gone with the mandate system).
All Trump has done is confirm that he doesn’t think Obama care is good. But that idiot needs to discuss his policies.
“We’re going to take Obamacare and replace it with something terrific”
Says NOTHING about how he plans to address the issue.
This isn’t going to change, our only choices for the next president are between a fucking buffoon that doesn’t even understand what the job he’s “applying” for entails, and a Conniving lying bitch that will flip in a heartbeat to appease those with the largest wallet. Either way the middle class is still fucked
100% agree with your statement! Referring to the statement of the person you replied to; clearly most ppl don’t understand how the economy works but giving tax breaks to the super wealthy is absolutely FALSE rhetoric that has been peddled to us for so long we actually believe it. It’s a completely unfounded assumption, the driving force of our economy IS the middle class because of size alone. Any economy is based largely on production and consumption, and considering the small size of the wealthy class, it is not possible for them to consume or even desire to consume the amount of goods middle class folks consume as a whole. The wealthy class of business owners can ONLY create jobs when demand for the product/service they provide increases which is directly related to the middle class consumer. When the middle class no longer have disposable income, they stop consuming goods and there isnt ANY amount of tax incentives/breaks for the wealthy that can overcome this feat. They didn’t get wealthy as business owners by hiring people without considering the actual need for additional employees regardless of product/service demands. Our govt has now formed a symbiotic relationship with wealthy corporations that permits them to pay substandard living wages while the middle class foot the bill for subsidies necessary to sustain the working poor which saves these corps tons of money and diverts their responsibility for paying living wages over to the middle class taxpayers. It’s a perfected system and to the many who truly don’t understand how it works this serves to keep them busy arguing amongst themselves about the several different but incorrect indoctrinated narratives rather than directing frustration at those who are indeed responsible and SHOULD be held accountable! But division and distraction continue to be infallible methods for imposing special interests agendas with little/no opposition from the people.
I don’t work because I have back problems because of my pervious job . Now I am out of work
I have no money to pay for health insurance what can.I do
I have the same problem.
I have lowest plan with the highest deductable.
I can’t get my insurance any cheaper then 40% of my monthly income, I don’t fit into any of the categories for assistance.
I’m slowly drowning in insurance premiums. Can’t afford to see the doctor and if I really get sick, I’m done. I’ll be financially ruined and to old to recover.
So much for the pursuit of happiness.
Ok no one is answering this question as far as i can tell, though maybe i missed it:
What happens if i cant afford healthcare AND the fee/fine/penalty for not being able to afford it?
Im 26, i have some disabilities and cant hold a regular job for more than a couple months depending on a few things. My parents are going to help me pay for a lawyer and doctors appointments to get disability, but from what i hear, disability probably wont be more than a thousand a month, if even that much. and if i ever want to not rely on my parents, ill have to pay the doctor bills myself which would come out of the disability check (a lawyer said to have disability a monthly doctor visit is required). I also live in a city that requires a car (not by law but by culture). I dont have enough money to pay for much more than a crappy 90s car (if im lucky).
What do i do? If my parents were to die, will i be homeless? If not having healthcare is illegal, will i go to jail? There are days and weeks at a time that i can work but there are also days and sometimes weeks at a time that im not functional enough to work.its also entirely unpredictable. Not many jobs in america that i know of accomodate that level of instability.
Someone please give me some answers. Thank you
If you live in a state where Medicaid was expanded, then your answers will come from understanding how expansion works. If you are “in the Medicaid gap” then you have that complication. If you qualify for assistance, but still have cost issues, that is another issue.
The punishment for not having healthcare and being able to afford it technically is a fee (specifically not a jail-able offense), that Donald J. is likely going to get repealed.
Google any of those terms or search our site for them, it should point you in the right direction.
If all else fails, if you are having an emergency you can show up at a public hospital and local charity is often an option.
All the above said, this is why we fight for a public option and single payer.
and what if i cant pay the fee? I live in texas. my dad never taught me how taxes work or medicare or any of that.. so i dont really understand your implications. i just know that i have no money and i dont have the capacity to make enough money to support myself or even close. maybe 5-10% of the amount it costs to support myself.
First of all, you base my medical cost for insurance on how much I make a year. Most are based on there Salary, and should be based on 40 hour a week and what you make per hour. I make 13.75/hr x 40 = about 29k and some change. But I get overtime and make more. Each year is different and I do depend on my overtime. So I make 39,000 and my insurance is sky high with being the lowest on the bronze insurance. You wanna take 3/4 of my paycheck per week per month and say this is affordable. Indont understand how you can say this is. You dictate to the American people on how they should run there lives. How dare you become a dictator. I’m appalled by you making that choice and haven’t listened to those who can’t afford it. We’re nothing to you and you don’t give a dam. Don’t know what else to say since no one else in our government wants to listen to us.
Insurance can’t cost 3/4 of your income after cost assistance. The maximum it can cost is 9.5% of MAGI for the second lowest cost silver plan, since we are talking about a bronze plan it would be less. This is true for an individual making $39,000 (in MAGI after deductions) with cost assistance. Having more family members increases the assistance amount. Over 17 million people who didn’t have coverage before the law now have coverage. The cost of coverage can be frustrating, but the numbers in this comment don’t add up. Feel free to comment back with more detail explaining the situation better.
Answer Rating:
If that were true, then my lowest premium wouldn’t be $240.
9% of my MAGI is $180
explain this.
Tax credits are based off the second lowest cost silver plan in your region. That will cap a plan with the same cost at 9.5% of income at 300% – 400% FPL. If you get a more expensive plan (perhaps because your region is expensive) you could certainly end up paying the difference. In the same spirit, if you get a lower cost bronze plan (there should be lower cost plans) you would save more money.
This is only true for Marketplace subsidies. For employer plans they are supposed to ensure your share of costs is less than 9.5%.
I am a naturalized citizen originally from EUROPE and I voted twice for Obama but this Obamacare is not well thought out and does not benefit the lower income people like it says it does.
You have to be super poor to qualify for Medicaid then again that would be close to being homeless because you have to make less than what $15-$20k. Who can live on that unless you live in the middle of nowhere. And if you make more than that and do not qualify for Medicaid then you get taxed highly and have to pay a lot of money just so you can see a doctor. If you have a job and make say $40k to $60k your premium is like $250-$300 for the lowest care. The government thinks you are making a decent salary, boom they tax you higher, plus a premium as high as a car payment. You get penalized for working in this country, you might as well be on SNAP and Medicaid and have 5 kids by 5 different men and work as a waitress or nanny to get by and get paid in cash.what a joke!
Where I live, DC area that is, where rich politicians, well mainly Obama reside!!, a 1 bedroom apartment starts from $1500, 2 bedroom $2500 Fairfax County is what, the second richest county in the US? Yet, you want me to pay taxes and premiums similar to what a person residing in say Wichita.
My previous job offered healthcare I used to pay ~$400 for myself and my daughter (divorced mom of now a teenager, by the way, who has not collected one penny in court ordered child support in 15 yrs THANKS AMERICA) Now my job offers no insurance and I make about $25k less than what I made before the crisis in 2008 ( and noone bailed me when I lost my house, THANKS AMERICA) marketplace wants to charge me the same amount of premium for an HMO level care. It is ridiculous. And to get charged a penalty is even more ridiculous.
I’m telling you this country is a joke on so many levels. But you do not realize it because the ethnocentrism and patriotism have blinded you. You think this is the greatest country in the world. Umm, have you looked around and seen how many homeless or people who are about to be homeless just because they miss a paycheck or two? Have you ever been to the Netherlands or Sweden or Luxembourg and seen how wealthy they are- oh they get 2 months of vacation every year too by the way.
Health insurance should be government funded. Simple as that. You tax all that money but sorry, what do we exactly get in return? After the snow storm we could only go back outside yesterday and roads were still messed up here and schools have been closed until next Monday because noone bothers to clean the roads. Chicago got 6 months of snow, much worse, schools or the roads never closed for 1 day. Just ask Obama. So where are my tax dollars going in Virginia?
I had very high hopes for Obama, in fact I was at the Grant Park on that cold November night as a former resident of Chicago. But he failed me and so many other hard working people. I expected tax reforms- learn something from the Swiss tax systemfor example. Motivate the hard working people, single moms like me, who is not trying to cheat the system. When the government makes a SNAFU, BAIL THE PEOPLE OUT first. Make college education close to free. Look at Europe, mainly Germany. Education is free and much better- I went to college on both continents FYI.
Some of you may say, wellyou are complaining so much why dont you leave. Well, when your dhild is born in this country and this is the only country she knows you would do the same. When she is off to college in 2 yrs I will say sayanora and leave you with the same headaches and problems you always talk about before and during every election time and complain but never seem to find a solution ever since I ve moved here since the Clinton era.-whom I miss dearly.
You talk as if paying 8% of your income is ok and acceptable for insurance that does nothing. If 8% is so low cost to you them maybe you should send us 8% of your income. Since its nothing anyhow. Then we could pay our stupid “obamacare” each month, because that 8% means to us we cannot save money we cant afford other bills, we end up with nothing, Etc
9.5% Of gross pay is a lot more than 9.5% of net pay. Calculated from my gross pay, 9.5% is $40. My average check is only $275. So, $275 – $40 = $235. Now I have $235 to pay bills and eat food. If I could pay my bills in full on time ever, that would be $235 – $280 = $-45. Even without an insurance bill, I’m still $5 in the hole, every week. Every week I have to figure out how to turn that negative balance into food and gas money. If – no – When the car breaks, we’re in crisis mode. More debt on top of more debt on top of shut-offs on top of calling off work because I have no transportation on top of more debt and more and more debt. I work in retail, so I’ve been juggling this for 15 years, when the recession really started. This is my real life, not some imaginary projection of sliding-scale blah blah blah. If I actually got $400 a week, my life would be rainbows and unicorns, a fantasy, just like basing costs on gross pay. $120 of disposable income! I could buy healthy food! I could not stress about what utility to put off without a shut-off! I could do fun outdoor activities that cost money! I could fix my house’s water leaks that are most likely getting moldy by now! A dream! All that better living might lead to better health! But no, instead I have to give up 1/3 of my paycheck to help subsidize insurance companies that want 15% more of my check to to nothing for me except cause more stress and starvation.
Campaign finance whatever whatever… OUTLAW LOBBYING.
Oh, I see. Health insurance shouldn’t be higher than 9.5 percent of adjusted gross income. That happens to be .05 percent under the Medical tax deduction for a year. SO, IN EFFECT 9.5% equates to 0% medical write off at tax time. Brilliant! Trump will change that BS.
@Jacqueline you are 1000% correct and that is what I am doing as well as soon as I save enough money (which will be awhile in this shit country) I am out and this is coming from a natural born citizen of the US and my children are coming with me.So Have fun raping all your citizens America and have your fun while it last doing the same to me because in a few short years you wont have myself and my two daughters to steal from you low life p.o.s in government and corporate america.Denmark or sweden is the way to go I’m telling you everybody having these issues if you are fed up and tired of the system never changing and stealing your hard earned money and leaving you with nothing then go to a better country because depite what everyone says here in they’re idiotic blind patriotism the U.S IS NOT the best country to live the dream in other countries in Europe are.If everyone was to do this drastic measure lets see how long government survives on they’re own without our hard earned cash or lets see how quickly it changes when they lose more then a quarter of the people footing the bill for them and they’re p.o.s cronnies.
Only 9.5%? I am a 22 year old who has just finished college. I am still living with my parents who themselves cannot afford insurance. I have a part time job with the state. I makeep close to $900 a month and pay everything myself. I have just started paying back my student loans and trying to do so in a shorter amount of time. After talking with representatives and finding the lowest priced plan, $157 a month, I feel like this is a waste of money that I cannot afford. I only see a doctor for checkups twice a year at $50 a visit. The fee of being penalized for not having insurance is certainly lower than over $2,400 a year. Paying over 20% of my income on something I won’t use is just plain stupid.
I totally agree!!! mine is 661 a onth for the lowest. between my husband (who is on medicare) and I e make 70,000….but alot of that is early(partial) social security becasue we cant afford to live without opting for early payments. I don’t go to the dr so for me, this is truly a waste of money. I need to gie up my job that I love but doesn’t pay benefits, and go to a job that I’ll hate for that employer to help defray the cost of my health care!!!!! only in America!!!
Unfortunately the government does not care if people can or cannot afford healthcare they just care if they are following “the law” made to require them to have it punishable by a fine if they don’t. We have less and less rights and freedoms. It is sad. My income is next to nothing but I qualify for a bronze program for $812.27/ month ummm yeah I don’t even make that a month. That’s our government,that’s our land of the used to be free. Oh and did I mention that medicaid sent me a letter right before the deadline stating they will not be making a decision on my case at this time? Disgusting!!
you know what 9.5% is.
The same as Sales Tax.
We’re being bled.
Tax when You’re paid. Tax when you buy anything with the money you were already taxed on, and now a mandatory tax for living in the states.
9.5 is too high. if i make 22000 a year after tax. the cost of rent around here is 800 dollars on the low end. utilities, electricity, garbage, water, sewer, phone, and gas for the crummy car i have to drive because i cant afford to get ahead plus 300 in food eating on the cheap with never going out. never enjoying anything in life with my money that i work 40 hours a week to earn, the total comes to 1600 a month for me. and i get to live. that’s 19200 a year. if im then able to be charged roughly 220 dollars (9.5% of 28000) on my Gross income, not my take home, but what i was already taxed out of and you multiply that by 12 months that’s another 2640. add the 19200 from earlier. and Ive spent 21840. of my 22000.
That leaves me with 160 dollars? in a years work? of working for 2000 hours? I have 160 dollars? And you think this is reasonable? How does a 25 year old get anywhere in life? how is the suicide rate not higher? how have all the people not left the country for somewhere they don’t have to get a second and third job yet? This is a major step backwards.
Oh, but if i forgo the whole thing. I can get away with a 700 tax fee. which would allow me another 1950 to hang onto. So if I just take the tax hit and don’t get covered, don’t use your system, and never have to go to the doctor then ill have something to pay for a car when mine falls apart.
You know whats frustrating though, is that most people who support this federally imposed health care wont understand that what im saying is there are more ways to suffer than having your health sapped away by time. Money isnt everything, but it sure is when you don’t have anything and this bill did a great job of taking the last of it from me. 9.5% is not reasonable. 9.5% is attrotious. It’s abhorent. It’s disgusting. how about not taking 15% then 10% and another 10% before I have to pay 1600 of my 2000 a month to survive. ffs.
Bull they don’t care!!! I got hurt at work in 2010 and have been unable to return to work I have had 5 surgeries lost my job along with my insurance from work. We bought a home in 2008 so we have a monthly mortgage, car payments, utilities, auto insurance, toll to get to dr apt. And more. We worked hard to keep up our credit score. I go to the dr maybe 1 or 2 times a year. Now because I had to get health ins and the premium is so high I can’t pay the deductible of 6000.00. Now they increased my premium almost a 100.00 a month for 2016. Our credit is in the dumps. Can’t get help from SS because I worked for the School district and payed into a Teachers retirement. I had work and paid into SS for over 20 years but because I haven’t paid in in the last 10 year i can’t get SS benefits was told SSI was like welfare and we made to much for me to get it. But our government will give free health care to a bunch of illegal immigrants. Our government put others before its own.!!!!
Illegals do not get free health care, stupidest thing I’ve heard.
Illegals pay federal income tax and don’t even get a return FYI, pay extra on car insurance, get house and auto loans at higher interest rate, and on top of all that do not qualify for any help, if your referring to Medicaid, food stamps that might be given to American citizen their children and that might be because they only make the minimum wage to flip your burger, clean your house and cut your grass.
Wrong. Many illegals DO get free health care. They apply for and receive welfare which includes medical, housing subsidies, cell phones, food stamps. Check YOUR facts.
If you were injured at work, you should be receiving Workers’ Compensation or State Disability, your surgeries for that should be covered 100%, and you cannot lose your job.
You want my wife and I to pay $650/month ??? We don’t qualify for assistance either ??? We have a toddler and daycare and other bills to pay for. These premiums are outrageous. We slowly go broke every month because of you. You help me fall behind into debt day by day.
You say it can’t cost more than 8% but it does. This is just the premium. Most of us cannot afford the deductible or copays to even use it. The answers you give here are not based on reality. I did not have healthcare before because I simply could not afford it. It’s three times more expensive now, and our income has not increased, so how could you possibly conceive that it is now magically affordable?
seriously how can someone really afford health ins making 10.00/hr? 40/wk= 400 now lets take out taxes your left with 320 now at 9% of 400 = 36 320-36= 284 per pay check take home. rent =600 electric=80 phone=50 food for the whole month 350 gas=80 car ins (Michigan) 200 …..bills alone are 1360 now 40/hr work week I only take home 284×4 = 1136 that leaves me at a negative (224) ….So in America where the avg pay is 10/hr …the Government wants you to either live at home with parents or never ever be in a position to save money..you cant afford a car not…so walk or ride a bike….now you’ll really be at a crapy job because you cant get out of your little circle to find a good job…thank my lucky stars I have a decent job with 74K in student debt that I couldn’t find a job in that profession so I took a lower paying job.. and I have a 3month old baby and a wife who wont go back to work because her paycheck alone just covers day care….wow what a great life of debt I will never get out of and now I have to pay for 3 people’s forced health ins …here’s a tip ! don’t go to college unless you have money saved for it …..your student loans will never be paid off unless you only took out 6K to do some odd job that only pays you 13/hr instead of 10 … in which case you’ll end up paying around 30K because you can only afford to pay the interest and not the principle……end of rant…have a great day everyone! 🙂 Stay positive.
Maybe since you went to college and it sounds like your wife didn’t have a very good job if it only pays for daycare. You should have thought about daycare before you had the baby. Or maybe you could just both stop working and have 2 or 3 more babies. That’s what most people do and you can also work under the table for cash and still get all of the FREE benefits. It’s laughable to me that some people on here say illegals pay taxes and don’t get free medical……….they don’t pay taxes at all because they work under the table 100%. They have several kids and most of them are pregnant when they get here so they can give birth immediately to an American citizen to jump on the FREEBIE band wagon. A vote for Hillary is more of the same and she wants to legalize 16 million plus people who are in this country ILLEGALLY and have broken the law. She is only doing it for votes and wants to have open borders. I can’t afford Obamacare either mine is $1300 a month with a $6600 deductible and I’m unemployed at this time. My husband was out of work for 3 months this year. Thanks Obama and his voters. This is now our country and I see that 50% of the country thinks that Hillary is the answer and she LOVES Obamacare and thinks it’s working. ROFLMAO
Just FYI, childcare costs are more than the cost of in State College tuition in many states. If you have more than one child… It takes a GREAT paying job to make up for the cost of childcare. People spend $10,000-$20,000 just on childcare expenses every year per child for the first 5 years of their life.
While reading these comments, I have to say that people are outrageous with their behaviors. Unemployed people don’t get any insurance and illegals most definitely do not get any food stamps. The animosity in these responses is ridiculous.
I must say though, I make around $20,000 annually, and still have to support 2 children. This being said, I cannot afford any insurance and have a part-time job, so I get no insurance there. Right now, I am sick, but cannot go to the doctor- I haven’t went to the doctor in 3 years honestly even though I am loaded with health problems, I cannot afford any of the payments or deductibles on healthcare. My state also refused Medicaid. This hurts, but I am not sure what else to do. I hope the new president will have better intentions and can do more for me and my family.
There is no credit if you fall into the “Family Glitch” which is where me and my husband fall. My husband is self employed and I work outside the home. My employer offers health insurance but only pays a portion of mine. I would have to pay my husband’s total premium which is over 25 percent of my income. We have purchased his insurance from the marketplace for the past several years with no credits, and have watched his premiums go from 125.00 per month for a 500.00 deductible before ACA to 550.00 per month now for a 6000.00 deductible now. Where is the help for people who fall into the family glitch hole?
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Can’t help but to agree!!! This year, I’ve only made $21,482 as of my last pay stub, and Obamacare shows the lowest price per month as $360!!! I can’t afford that! But then if I try to get Medicaid, I “make too much”. So either people that can afford Obamacare or the “poor” can have insurance. Not anyone in between!!!
You may be looking a the cost of plans before cost assistance. Why some of the state run markets show people the prices of plans without cost assistance is pretty befuddling. But, this is the case in some some states. Coverage with cost assistance will always be between 2.5% – 9.5% of income for the second lowest cost silver plan in the state. $360 per month isn’t that, so then you are being quoted the base cost of the plan and not the cost after cost assistance.
One (after reading many comments like this) can’t help but wonder if states did this on purpose to scare people away from actually enrolling in plans. But of course that is probably to fringe of an idea to truly entertain. Most likely just need to a little redux on how some of the sites function.
I live in California, am Self Employed, and was told I should qualify for Medicare based on my income. Problem is, my wife and I make just enough and her insurance is covered through her employer. Now, since I am my own employer and trying to build a business, my employer is supposed to cover my insurance? With what money? I am supposed to not pay the one employee I have working for me or my business partner? No, states didn’t do this to scare people away from the program. My wife and I barely make enough to cover the school debt that we rolled into our mortgage when we refinanced so we could save $50 a month. We are lucky to have $50-100 at the end of the month, let alone put anything into savings. The ACA is no where near affordable. Then to make matters worse, if I don’t have coverage, I am going to get taxed substantially at the end of the year. We have a baby on the way and the coverage that we do have won’t even cover the $6,000 we need to come out of pocket with to have our baby. It is a giant shell game of a joke. 9.5% of a product I didn’t want to buy with a tax rate that is burdensome is not affordable. Yes, I would get premium assistance. That means, I would have a cost of $80 a month. So out of the $50-100 I am supposed to pay that? So I have to go $30 in the hole every month? Here is a thought, don’t force people to buy a product. For everyone else that is frustrated by this, welcome to the “pissed off at the Democrats who shoved this down our throats” party.
Here’s the deal. If you make under 30k a year, and are single, with no kids, you get screwed, period. You’re the backbone of the country, but are getting the shaft in the Federal Income Tax bracket for us, and on healthcare. You don’t qualify for any subsidies because according to government officials, you make too much money, since you are single with no dependents. Each year I see my Income Tax return get smaller and smaller. I claim 0, pay in nearly 3k in withholding, so I take home about 22k a year. Until we go to a single payer system, federally mandated healthcare will never work. Medicare for all. We already pay for it on each pay check. There is enough workers in the country for this system to work.
I get where you are coming from, but you are misquoting the amounts at which you get assistance. It’s 100% – 400% FPL and in states with Medicaid expansion where people save money. Check out how this works here: https://obamacarefacts.com/federal-poverty-level/
Obamacare facts is WRONG about what he says! We make 28000 yearly before taxes, so less afterward. And we qualify for a measly $9 credit monthly. Our premiums are hundreds per month! So saying that because we are under 400% of poverty level and have to pay only 8% is not right. We only get a $9 help monthly, as I said. We need more like$100 of it paid just to scrape by. Why would anyone believe that someone making $2000 a month after taxes could afford $210 per month on anything? After rent( we pay a lot for a tiny place), utilities at city prices, phone, internet, food is exorbitantly expensive, transportation, general money to actually enjoy life, because why live otherwise? And random expenses here and there like clothes, shoes for work etc. there is no $210 left to waste on this stupid insurance we do not need. The very idea that 22-30 k per year is enough is stupid! This coming from rich guys making half a million per year. Out of touch and ignorant people.
I have read through most of the comments here, and can’t disagree with a lot said. With that being said, my question to this answer is this: I have a 2 year old on medicaid, who is, thank God, almost never ill, but is still expensive to pay for his daily needs and increasing appetite. On top of this, I make less that $28,000 per year and am trying to afford rent, food, car payment (that I can not escape), credit card payments from trying to stay afloat, not to mention food, gas, diapers, clothing for my son (and I always buy second hand for him)…I receive $71 in food stamps, which pays little but bread, milk, and a package or 2 of chicken, and veggies. I don’t qualify for medicaid and still have over $1000 in medical bills from an emergency surgery I had 2 years ago, for which I am now in collections because I can’t even pay that. On top of all this, I am also a full time student and can’t afford to work fewer hours because my son would never have anything! After bills, I have maybe $100 left to buy food, gas, diapers, and such, so how am I supposed to pay $90+/mo for the cheapest ins on marketplace after the deduction/assistance thing they calculated for me when I can barely make it through the month?? Not to mention, I’m going in the hole on my account and am having to pay that back on top of the nsf fees they charge??? Is there another option that is not mentioned here?
Thanks for the kind words. The ways to get help are:
1. Medicaid, 2. Marketplace assistance, 3. Catastrophic coverage with approval from the marketplace in certain instances like when denied Medicaid in a non-expansion state, 4. Local Charities, 5. Buy Out of Pocket.
In an emergency you can also just show up at a public hospital.
This whole thing irks me, the ACA went so far, but the support wasn’t there to fully expand Medicaid or to do “just a little bit more”. We have to remember that when it comes time to vote. You may equate Obama with a half-measure for healthcare, but the other option on the table was nothing. We got the half-measure, now we need to push for more. Your situation is frustrating and all too common for my taste. We can and will do better, right?
My husband and I together make “too much” money, we pay $1179/month for the cheapest plan. This is $14,148 per year before the insurance has paid for anything. We also have an $85 co pay and a $6800 deductible each. Just to walk through the door of a doctor’s office – $85. So, if one of us has a heart attack on Dec 30 for example, we will have paid $14,148.00 + $6800.00 before any care is given, a total of $20,948. Who has that kind of money laying around? And, with this wonderful plan, we get to pay 50% of healthcare cost AFTER meeting the deductible.
Additionally this money is paid after tax is taken out of a paycheck, making it even more expensive. We are broke because of this.
I fully believe everyone should have access to health care – especially those who have pre-existing conditions who previously could not get insurance. Punishing healthy people is not the answer.
I also do not understand how someone who makes much less and therefore pays much less , gets to have a BETTER plan than what we get. The whole thing makes me sick, but I can’t afford to go to the doctor!
I think this sentiment is common, especially among those in the middle-class who work hard enough to be over 400% FPL, but aren’t wealthy enough to shrug off $16,000 bill in an emergency and/or absorb the $1,000 plus a month when factoring in their other expenses.
This is why I’ve always said we need to continue to reform the law. The first version that got through had lots of good points, but they are obscured by the bad ones for many, there is noting perfect about programs that punish people for working hard enough to be above any given poverty line.
Think we need to rethink a national public option that is extended to all incomes and move away from mandating people to buy a private product only. But each step of reform requires popular support and right now the popular sentiment is focused on the election and other matters.
We are in the same boat. We make just a tad over what would qualify us for any subsidies. But the cost of the lowest ACA plan for next year will cost us over $1000 per month for absolutely zero coverage due to high deductibles and extremely narrow networks. We had a child hospitalized last month so our expenses for this year will be at least $15,000. Oh, and did I mention that our ACA carrier went under so we are losing the entire amount of our deductible? So we start from scratch in October and nooooooooobody cares. I will not be surprised if the insurance company ends up not paying our bills even after deductible and we are held responsible for the full amount anyway due to them being bankrupt. So do we sue? Oops, they are bankrupt and they pay out first to banks. So basically we probably gave them $7000 in premiums this year for absolutely nothing in return- and the government will do absolutely nothing about it except fine me if I don’t pay taxes to an insurance company. In 2017 my premiums alone will be over $12,000, which is over 10% of our income, and we now have only one carrier to “choose” from so we’ll lose the ability to keep our doctors – not that we can afford to see doctors anyway with our health costs for 2017 STARTING at $12,000 plus $1000 for a medication (IF the cost of the medication doesn’t also rise). What happens in 2018 when rates go up another 50%? There is a breaking point… Then I think our answer will be to give up being self employed and go work for some big corporation so we can get health care. I think that’s what the powers that be would prefer we all do.
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I have the same situation here in Chicago. I make $17 per hour but I only work less than 40 hours a week because I have to pick up my son in the afternoon (single mom here). We did not qualify for State assistance due to my rate per hour. I cannot afford the exorbitant premiums @ healthcare.gov!!! What am I going to do now???
Make sure you are checking after cost assistance. At that hourly rate you should be getting pretty good premium prices after assistance.
I see this Obama Care Facts . com keeps replying the same thing. Prices are not including the “before cost assistance”
But Your Wrong!
Even with cost assistance I can not afford insurance monthly rate for family of 4. We are two months behind on insurance payments. Now what?
About to drop out of heathcare and then be fined for not having health insurance. Guess what….. Cant afford that fine either.
What do I do?
I bet the answer is nothing we can do. I wish I was (insert racist comment here). Id get all the free stuff.
?
I agree. Remarried this year we both had tons of debt. Trying to unbury. Be responsible. We work pay taxes. Cant afford like 360 for 1 persons health coverage. I am in 50s. Female. Do not need maternity coverage. Andnthatbpayment is more than our home.
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This responder needs a reality check. There are thousands of families who qualify for cost assistance, or Medicaid, based on their MAGI. It isn’t enough! There are families that look like they have decent earnings (by the numbers requested at Healthcare.gov) that are drowning in real life. We STILL can’t afford the coverage. They do not take debt load into account, don’t check to see if the families can qualify for credit (due to outstanding debt) to verify, don’t know if the families can afford the co-pays and deductibles on the lower tier coverages, don’t check to see if a family member has a life threatening illness, etc. etc. Obamacare doesn’t take into account the folks who are under 65, qualify for no assistance due to earnings and age, paying thousands per year in Rx costs, co-pays, deductibles, and costs associate with chronic (life-threatening) health problems. It doesn’t count the medical debt incurred in previous years that isn’t getting paid down. It only benefits people who don’t have income and/or know how to “work” the system to reap the benefits of welfare even though they shouldn’t be entitled to it. I could go on and on but what’s the point. We’re screwed.
We are well aware of the pitfalls related to cost in the current system and we were certainly aware of the pitfalls of the old system.
Our goal is to spread awareness of all the options people have under the Affordable Care Act (take deductions, use an HSA, get a Silver plan to be eligible for cost sharing reduction, shop based on your needs, understand networks). We aim to our readers understand ways to lower costs and to point out all the good the law is doing around the country.
We hope this will lead to a discussion about further smart reform of underlying healthcare costs and the way those are passed onto consumers. What we want to avoid is people misdirecting all their anger at the law and thus resulting in little more than a repeal of ObamaCare as a solution and instead spark a conversation about what still needs to change.
The reform has helped the few, not the overall hard working middle class Americans. In order for me to get a plan that I could actually use the insurance, I would have to get a Gold or Premium plan. I have asthma and have been unable to get my medication for a year because I could not get qualified for insurance last year even though I was an out of work single mother. This year, if I put myself and my daughter on a plan with somewhat reasonable deductibles it would cost m anywhere from $700-$1,110/month. How in the hell is that affordable? I would have to get a second job to do that, and in that case that raises my income and then the premiums are even more. This healthcare plan needs to be trashed and they need to start over, actually trying to do what is best for the masses. Other countries can do it, so we should be able to as well.
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I agree, this Obamacare Who can afford it. it needs to be trashed
How someone can figure I can afford $1,200 a month with a $7,500 out of pocket? Get real and stop taking from the lower middle class to pay illegal immigrants and lazy people
To clarify: Sick people and the underlying cost of healthcare would be the primary reason rates are going up. Illegal immigrants can’t get cost assistance (except in some states through Medicaid) and many states didn’t expand Medicaid (and it’s a different market) so those costs aren’t really added in.
I feel like i am being backed into a corner at this point. I absolutely can not afford to use the insurance i am paying for how is that ok? When will this change? How do they expect people who are going into debt and watching their once good credit rating drop! I cant make it much longer? I work have nothing now. Not taking my deductions basic necessities into consideration is outrageous!!! Why in the hell am i torturing myself for absolutely nothing! Im not getting a head anymore, im falling behind. Hmmm Quit my job get on medicaid full benefits i have cavities that cause severe pain and i still have to suffer thru but not if i dont work live off the government. Free health care dental and optical!!! I can finally feel healthy again… Free food and hey they will pay my shut off notices too doesnt sound bad at all i can do what ever i want all day and night. Thats what is going to happen if people are working for nothing! Saying people are getting help with subsidies etc is not true maybe some but not all people are. This is unbelievable and im sick of it. Im sick of being in pain and going into work sick while their are people on medicaid trying to sell me their antibiotics wth is that ??? Yea sell me their free medications that i help pay for!!! Seriously thats beyond wrong!!!
It all comes down to this… the rich don’t care because they can afford the premiums and the politicians aren’t even subject to the wonderful (NOT) “Affordable Care Act”; if you are destitute or know how to work the system you may get help BUT if you are “middle class” trying to do what you are supposed to you get NO help whatsoever!!! The middle class always gets screwed!
The problem is the screwed up idea that people need “skin in the game” when it comes to health insurance. If you are having a stroke how much more “skin” do you need? It’s your life and yet you say a person who now cannot work has to pay this huge penalty before he can receive care? He has to pay several thousand dollars, face multiple out-of network issues and spend hours on the phone when he may not even be able to speak. Plus he cannot work for an extended period. Why insist on kicking this man while he is down just so an insurance company can pocket money he needs to live and support his family? High Deductible Health Insurance is a crime against humanity and those who defend it should watch their back. Be not deceived God is not mocked!
The way income vs expenses are calculated is unfair flawed for most of these “public assistance benefits”, including Obamacare…and it seems to actually favor becoming unemployed if one is employed.
Housing, foodstamps, transportation costs and other financial help to the ‘poor’ is not considered as income for some, even as it is not considered an “expense” for others.
Why aren’t some working families aren’t allowed to reduce thier take-home income by the amount they pay for housing, food, or necessary transportation and childcare costs, when applying for health insurance benefits? For example:
A family of 4 (two working adults, two children) makes 3200 take-home pay a month, pays 900 of that for rent. Not eligible for free Link, transportation, or childcare. Subsidized insurance costs them about 240/mo which, after the rest of the families bills (food, gas, electric, phone, transportation, childcare, etc) puts them in the negative every month. Their deductible for doctor visits is $40. Their tax EIC is 2400, which is mainly used to catch up on late bills every year. They can’t save up for a rainy day or their childrens’ future college education. They would get a better deal (but remain poor) if one parent quit their job.
A single mom with one child who makes 1200 a month at work. She has a small apartment worth 900 but only pays 200 a month, because she is on sec8. She also gets around 160 in Link, and 200 in child support. She also gets free childcare, free transportation card, free phone, help with utility bills, and she and her child get free medicaid insurance, her deductible is $2 for doctor visits. She would still get most of those benefits if she didn’t work at all. Right now, her paycheck (and 3350 tax EIC) is practically gravy, to have fun with as she pleases.
That’s why single payer is the way to go–but Obama tried that briefly and couldn’t get it passed. He was forced into a “Romneycare” style solution, because blue dog Dems and all Republicans were too much in the pocket of the insurance corporations to make that drastic of a change happen. Plus, Republicans scream “socialism!” every time a single payer system is mentioned. Obama is not at fault–he did the best he could, given the current situation. Free market solutions do not exist–we already have a free market, and costs keep rising. Tort reform is a drop in the bucket and wouldn’t solve the problem. Severe cost control is the only solution (like Germany, who has a program similar to Obamacare, practices), but again, the corporate power brokers won’t permit cost controls. So what we have is the best we’re going to get until either cost controls are put into place or a single payer system is voted in. And good luck in the current political environment in regard to both of those. Obama is merely a fall guy for everything that the military-industrial-corporate complex has done to undermine this country. Sorry.
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Dear Mr. Obama Do I pay my house payment or health insurance? I wish you ” Obama” would just please listen. You have zero idea what its like to be in my shoes. My wife and I make 79k combined each year. This sounds like a lot but really when its all added up we really don’t have much left. Maybe we go out to eat and stuff but We can’t afford kids even We made the choice to just Not have them also let alone retirement Forget that lol. When you factor in 983.00 house payment 150.00 car payment, Food,Gas,phone, other small debt payments we only have about 700.00 per month left how can we pay for insurance daycare kids LOL, retirement on that. According to you mr. Obama we make too much for government help but yet we are the ones paying the taxes. It sounds like to me we should quit our jobs forclose the house and get Free Medicade. It’s the only way. The working middle class cant get ahead in life. if this Crap still continues American will fall. There is till hope if you Mr. Obama would at least take away the mandate ….then it will solve the problem. I must make a choice pay my house payment and car payment or have health insurance. I think I’ll pay the penalty divorce my wife and have a lower income bracket. It seems to me the government want us to fail. Why does a 17 year old girl get to drop out of school pop out kids get free health care, free cell phone, and medical care, and I have to pay for it. IF I pay taxes she should get nothing unless she pays also. In fact I pray that I get cancer so I can die sooner, at least my wife would be better off. At least on paper. Think about this please!!
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I can 1 up you, I’m a young, reasonably healthy, single female working at $10/h and I make roughly 16k to 17k a year depending on if I can get O/T. Because I make just over 16k instead of 15k I don’t qualify for any benefits or exemptions. After subtracting my basic living expenses (rent/car/utilities) I only have about $275 a month left for personal expenses such as food, toiletries, gas, etc… Under Obamacare, the cheapest insurance I qualify for is $155/month with an almost $7,000 deductible. That would leave me with a weekly budget of $30 for gas and food and I already burn $20 of gas a week just commuting to work! My previous insurance before Obamacare was only $13.50/month with a $100-$500 deductible and I would still have it if Obamacare hadn’t stepped in and told my company it was “non-compliant”. The tax-fee to be uninsured is only 1% of your yearly income, for me that’s roughly $14/month. Which one did they think most Americans on a tight budget would pick!
I see where you are going here. Just for clarification the fee is up a bit this year. The thing here is that you were getting coverage cheaper than most Americans before and now it looks like you are stuck with a jacked up employer rate. If you could get cost assistance (at your income) you would actually be looking at a similar priced plan this year (after cost assistance). So the reality of the situation is NOT COOL for you personally, but we can see how the real sticking point if we wanted to fix things was the cost of employer coverage in the current market (due to the way subsidies work).
The annual fee for not having insurance in 2015 is $695 per adult and $347.50 per child (up to $2,085 for a family), or it’s 2.5% of your household income above the tax return filing threshold for your filing status – whichever is greater. You’ll pay 1/12 of the total fee for each full month in which a family member went without coverage or an exemption.
SO YOUR SAYING 2.5% OF HOUSEHOLD INCOME?? I MAKE 35k/YR AT 3% ITS 1050/YR WHICH IS 87.5 DOLLARS / MONTH…..WHY CANT I GET A QUOTE FOR THAT EACH MONTH? WHY DO I NEED TO PAY 200 JUST FOR ME? THATS AROUND 7.5 % OF MY TOTAL INCOME IS GOING JUST TO INS I DONT NEED….I’M HEALTHY AS CAN BE…..SCREW THIS I’LL PAY THE 3% AND SAVE 112.5 A MONTH
I make $65,000 a year, my wife who is sick had to quit her job making $65,000 a year, she also held the benefits. She has what you call Cronic migraines. It’s so bad that she has worn sunglasses and ear plugs to work. Well she is also suffering from PTSD due to her ex husband beating her up for 9 years. She has a lot of medical issues that was carried into this marriage. Now, I have to pay all the bills, mortgage, CC’s and all her bills. She just recently took on a part time job making $10 an hour. I am healthy right now but we all know that can change quick. We fall in the category of “your out of luck”. I can’t get help anywhere at all. I can’t even afford health for my wife without losing my house!! I’m 38 and 1 1/2 years ago I finally made my dreams by buying a home. But now I’m forced into most likely selling and moving in with someone. I didn’t ask for my dreams to be taken away from me, but with no one to help it seems like they are. Now the person from Obama care can fill me in with a bunch of non existing, falsification stories about go here and apply for this or go here and apply for that. What they don’t have is the balls to say sorry dude, your life sucks and we still want your fee. I’ve paid my taxes, always obeyed the law, and done right by all my bill collectors. But I’m ashamed of saying that the government of the USA is nothing more then a MOB!!! They don’t care about us at all. Leave the homeless in the streets, screw the hard working class people, take all our taxes just because THEY don’t know how to manage money. When’s they retire they will sit nicely, while we all suffer. Burn in HELL all you politicians. I hope you all lose your jobs, be forced into the streets and get your ass kicked by every thug alive! You deserve nothing but the worst!! And thank you for taking all my dreams away and leaving my wife sick, this is all on you!!!
Has your wife applied for Social Security Disability? She should. It takes awhile to get it but if she has a verifiable chronic medical condition she can get it.
It’s me, my husband & daughter living on one income of $36000 a year. Our daughter barely got medicaid. We get nothing else. We’re not on welfare etc. My husband pays a lot for his insurance through work & adding me would be a lot more. Can’t afford it. We scrape to get by. We’re in such bad shape & they act like we can afford coverage. We’re in severe dept. I don’t work & can’t. Disabled but make too much to get any help (ssi or ssdi). I suddenly started getting really sick in Oct. 2012. Also, I just found a lump about 2.5 months ago & it twice the size now. My front teeth have crumbled. I vomit blood sometimes, always in pain. i pass kidney stones all the time. I could go on & on. I just have to say that I’ll be surprised if i make it to my early 40’s.
Ditto for me and millions like us. Ben echos our situation. The options listed as answers is so scripted and false it is laughable. Repeal Obamacare, repeal the Elitist Demicrats and repeal our current government. I would rather the government stay out of our lives altogether.
What? None of the idiots who voted for his bill even knew what was in it when it passed. He could have snuck any socialized bullshit in that he wanted and no one who voted on it would have a clue that it happened. Wake up genius, he’s just as much a corporate shill as all the rest of the big buisness bottom feeders in office.
That is a really interesting POV. Good comment. I do think though it’s very American to be slow and steady and not over-rock the boat, perhaps there is more to the story.
Obama IS at fault. He just could not do enough for Wall Street but noting for the people. He is black, but “Black Lives Matter” was formed under his watch. Doesn’t that speak well of his priorities. I hate to use the “N” word but if it is used to describe a certain type of degraded person who has sold his soul for money and access to power the shoe fits and you hardly have to be black to wear this shoe!
Ha ha ok so the funniest thing is I Had health insurance that cost me 200 a month ….. Not counting meds and co pays …. They didn’t even wanna pay for my asthma meds I’ve been on for the past 6 years ……. I’m sorry but my med were are working why would I change just because they say they won’t pay for it ….. Last I checked that’s why I even have health insurence ……… But needless to say my husban and I both are in our early 20s we just bought a house and had to choose between eating and health insurance like really how dare them …….. We only make 25,000 a year how the hell are we supposed to make it thank god we don’t have kids I don’t know what we would do ….. The bad thing is we both went to collage thank god we don’t have student loans …….like how do they expect young adults who do have health problems to get anywhere in life ……..and the funnest thing about all of it is I go out of state to a dentist because our dental insurance in state is more expensive to use it when it covers 60% than to pay out of pocket in another state that’s the sad thing
I’m 52, married, one child 9 years old. We live in Los Angles. AGI is roughly $89,000. That sounds like a lot, but in Los Angles after taxes, take home is roughly $2500 every two weeks. We rent. We pay the least expensive we can find and not live in a dangerous neighborhood. I know others who are making less than us and are paying a lot more than we are. We consider ourselves lucky. Because we have a child we can’t just live anywhere we want. We have to consider schools, and many other things in order to make sure our daughter is safe and secure. Roughly 50% of our income goes to rent, that’s pretty common in LA right now and not likely to get better for sometime. Because of the recession, my husband was out of work for most of the last two years, so we have no savings left and we have debt, lots of it. Credit is what kept us from becoming homeless.
The quote we received, and believe me, I didn’t take Covered CA’s Website as my only source, I called every expert I could find. The best quote we were able to get was over $900 a month, obviously not eligible for any subsidies. Outside the exchange, through my husband’s work it was roughly $1200. This is not affordable….
Currently, without insurance, it costs us more than we make to live and pay bills. Even if we defaulted on all our debt, we would still not be able to afford even half of these premiums. I’m sick now, I need to got to the doctor and find out what is wrong, but I can’t,… I also badly need new glasses, my daughter and I need to go to the dentist. How did these things become a luxury,….
I’ve asked others how they are doing it, thinking we must be missing something. Found out that many are in the same position, no health insurance, or they have parents that are well off enough to help out or they are either directly or indirectly going into debt for it. Some have even gotten a divorce so they can be eligible for help. These are middle class people, not people in poverty. We need universal health care. NOW!!!!!!!!!
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Of course I do not qualify for help. I have a full time job and so does my husband. To be able to afford healthcare, we would have to move farther away from our jobs to afford our rent. Even if we could afford health insurance, we still couldn’t cover the deductible. Forced health insurance is only going to drive us into further debt. Good bye middle class.
My wife and I together make about 66k a year. With that, the monthly “insurance” cost for my wife and I is about $672. Now, that’s still out of my price range if everything was covered 100%, and almost nothing is. And, there is a $12,000 annual deductible! The deductible and the annual premium together mean that I will need to spend $20,000 a year before I get fully covered for virtually anything! Sure, the plan covers $70 office & urgent care visits, and free preventive care, but my private doctor only charges $75 for these visits. I would pay the first $500 for prescriptions, the next $500 covered by the plan, and after that I’m on my own…
Conclusion: won’t be wasting my money on this type of so-called insurance! It would serve me no good unless I had over $20,000 in medical bills in one year. In that case, we wouldn’t be able to afford it anyway! Who could?
The truth is, for those who want to really use health services, and who don’t get cost assistance, the Gold or Platinum plans are the only real solution. The high deductible plans are meant to act as catastrophic coverage and pair with an HSA. They are a decent move for some, but like if you want a Harley of course a Moped is going to seem like a crummy deal for the price.
“The truth is, for those who want to really use health services, and who don’t get cost assistance, the Gold or Platinum plans are the only real solution. The high deductible plans are meant to act as catastrophic coverage and pair with an HSA. They are a decent move for some, but like if you want a Harley of course a Moped is going to seem like a crummy deal for the price.”
Are you seriously comparing buying health insurance to buying a motorcycle? Sure, I guess, if that Harley you can’t afford offered life saving coverage to chronically ill people while that darned “moped” covered none of the costs. How about you change your statement to “those who NEED to use health services because they are CHRONICALLY OR TERMINALLY ILL and who don’t get cost assistance, the Gold or Platinum plans are the only real solution, but unfortunately they are not AFFORDABLE TO THOSE WHO NEED IT.”
Actually the answer isn’t that simple. I was just trying to use association and metaphor instead of saying the same thing over and over:
Health insurance is expensive
States that didn’t embrace the program made life very hard on those who lose income or don’t have income.
Gold and platinum plans are essential if you are sick and don’t have medicaid, unless you pair catastrophic with an HSA and have a good buffer in the HSA.
There are lots of solutions for lots of people, but not for everyone. Every situation is different.
There is going to be sticker shock and buyers remorse in many situations, even when people make the best choices for them.
They never compared the two. They gave an example. Why you are angry with an person who is just trying to answer peoples questions is beyond me.
There are numerous studies that show that the gold and premium plans are not a better deal. You are incredibly uniformed for one who thinks he has all the answers.
The worst part is having only a small window that allows for the purchase of insurance. I simply do not have the money to pay for any of it today. However if Im able to turn it around in the next 90 days, Im still screwed as now I cant get coverage at all.
You are a moron for thinking that this is better than what existed before.
After walking bone on bone for several years now, my son has just had his first knee replacement. He can get the other one replaced as soon as he can save up another $6,000.00 for the deduction. Which makes me think that, Ins. Co. are making a killing as are pharmaceutical Co. Maybe if we can get the costs under control there might be enough for everybody.
These other countries, I keep reading about, that provide health care for everyone ie: Canada, Germany, etc. set limits on what pharmaceutical Co. can charge in their countries.
As for reeling-in the Insurance Companies. Someone more knowledgeable than me will need to address that.
Thank you for the opportunity to express my two cents.
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I am unemployed and disabled, but not eligible for SSDI or SSI since the government says I’m not disabled.
WHAT do I do? I’m not eligible for any aid with insurance due to my “income being too high.”
My income is $0!!
It’s all a joke to the government!
Just remember that ObamaCare tried to expand coverage to you for free and the GOP in your state blocked this. In short you and millions of others have no coverage options due to Republicans in your state.
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I’m so tired of the Dem’s blaming the Rep’s and the Rep’s blaming the Dem’s. You are elected by the people to work FOR us not against us, stop blaming each other and LISTEN to the people! I didn’t want this health care, I was just fine making payments out of pocket now I am forced to pay for something I don’t want and can’t afford. I was fine with my $50 a month payment for my medical bills that was affordable.
You are right, we all should be focusing on the best healthcare options for our country and not pointing fingers over political differences. The caveat of course is that each party, and in some instances each politician, has very different views on what the right next move is. Still, we need to remember to focus on what we have in common more than how your political leanings make us different. Ideally.
The best healthcare option for our country or its people???? For the people and those in healthcare business it is a having a free market where the government is not monopolizing or invested in a business such as healthcare. The Healthcare system we have is ment to divide people . Only 2 religions are exepemt and only one or 2 other insurance companies are also exempt. One is MEDI SHARE. A christian company that pats for everything you cant . It has a few rules but it seems worth it. A family of 3 can be coverd for aprix 200. A month ,double check that. The only good thing this obamacare did was to make people more religious and seek real help elswhere So thanks.
“Just remember that ObamaCare tried to expand coverage to you for free and the GOP in your state blocked this. In short you and millions of others have no coverage options due to Republicans in your state.”
At first I thought this comment was made by someone looking at this website. Then I realized, no, this comment was made by the official in charge of this website. I hope you realize how unprofessional your comment was. Most people would be in trouble with their boss for writing with that tone and making a comment like that. I suggest you edit it, although I’m guessing your supervisor is just fine with you making remarks of that nature.
Point taken. Counter point (from the boss / author of this privately run free to use fact site attempting to help people understand the law).
The PPACA was written to expand Medicaid coverage to all adults below the 133% poverty level (138% in practice). A libertarian / conservative backed lawsuit NFIB V. Sebblius attempting to “break” ObamaCare made it to the Supreme Court. That ruling ended with the mandate being declared a tax and let states opt-out of Medicaid expansion. Almost exclusively “red” states opted out of expanding Medicaid. The stated reason was cost, but this is really a weak argument. Likely the goal with opting out is the same as the NFIB case, to break ObamaCare and make Obama look bad. We can’t say this was the intention of all, but we can look back at videos, see the behavior of the GOP, and think of basic strategy and reasonably guess this is the case.
So when we say “ObamaCare tried to expand coverage for free (or low cost) to millions of uninsured low income Americans and that Republicans in your state are to blame for you not having coverage.” This is true. There is no elegant way to say that the GOP has sacrificed a bunch of low income Americans as pawns in an ideological war against Obama and subsidized healthcare. That was there choice, I don’t think it’s’ unfair to call it how it is. I could have framed the above as more favorable to the GOP like “they fought the socialist law to free poor people from the tyranny of state spending”, but I gotta say the version I went with sounds more true.
To clarify, we are a privately run website (the official one would of course never talk politics, only healthcare). Our aim is to help people understand the PPACA. In this case the data point to convey is that if you don’t hold Republicans accountable for rejecting Medicaid for political reasons then people in your state will continue to go without healthcare. If you don’t have healthcare because your Governor rejected expansion then this likely matters to you.
Perhaps had the Democrats not voting for this atrocity in the middle of the night without any Republicans knowing about it…it could have been different. I am also between a rock & a hard place…$0 income….husband is disabled & gets $345 a month after his $200 premiums for medicare…make too much for medicaid & can’t afford Obamacare at $426 a month…no that isn’t for a premium plan…high deductible & high out of pocket $12000…is this really reasonable??? No!!! I m 59 yrs old…my husband makes too much for me to qualify for medicaid & burger flippers want $15 an hr…ha!!!
Can’t agree more with the first statement, if the parties would work together we would have better legislation. Ryan even admits that the GOP has been the party of “NO”. Everything else aside, their stonewall tactics have been about as useless as a wet noodle for the country. Blocking liberals is not governing, it’s just stalling. I am NOT impressed. Stop the hate and pandering and give us a smart business oriented solution that provides universal coverage, give the people and the other party something to take seriously.
The truth is nothing is free. Tax payers still have to pay taxes. And then the “government” takes hard working tax payers money and gives free or low cost insurance and anything else people that don’t work want or need. I don’t have insurance. I can’t afford to buy groceries. We only make it by the grace of God. I dare you to say the republicans didn’t want people to have free stuff. Where is the government getting the FREE money to help all the people that aren’t working. The only people that should have “free” insurance are truly physically or mentally disabled. And for the other people, the great and powerful government should have jobs available for American citizens. And since no one is really listening: let me just say: If an illegal alien has a child in the United States that child or children should also be illegal. Nothing’s free unless you don’t work. Which gives people very little incentive to work. Ridiculous.
The “administrator” on this site is extremely unhelpful and unprofessional…. a very biased person who is not giving anyone any positives of this program… Just blaming others… It must run in the current administration’s nature… Blame the other guy…. Gosh, it couldn’t be Obama…. his plan is infallible! HAHA (In case you didn’t already notice… I’m being extremely sarcastic – OBAMACARE IS HURTING AVERAGE AMERICANS!!!!!!!)
Hmm, thanks for the feedback. I actually just respond to what I see. So maybe the initial comments are negative and the response shaded by that. Maybe its frustrating to see a country who needs to fight a bigger healthcare issue focused on fighting itself instead. Honestly don’t know, but will consider your comment.
Most of the site is filled with all the awesome benefits of the ACA. But there are also a lot of misconceptions. Learning about the law I feel a responsibility to simply let the conversation rest at “OBAMACARE IS HURTING AVERAGE AMERICANS!!!!”. I think that is a shallow reading of the nature of healthcare in America and will only lead us further away for a real solution… and i’m doing it again aren’t I.
Then President Obama is a coward. He should force Medicaid expansion down those Governors throat or withhold federal money to those states and use those funds for tax credits. These Governors are jeopardizing the well being of their citizens. President Obama does nothing, I call that cowardice.
Actually they have no options because the health care plan dictates which plans are approved as “qualified”
as it turns out. There are 2 sides to everything. You say its republican, I say its a faulty premise that we should put more power over us into the hands of the people who make money from screwing us. But what do either of us really know about what were talking about?
Likely we both have part of the truth and if we put our heads together we can make changes. But I suggest we fight over who has better hair Trump or Sanders.
OMG!! REALLY, now it is a party line thing too. when is anyone going to take responsibility and say they screwed this whole thing up!!! Use drugs, have no ambition, have lots of babies at a young age and refuse to work and support them or come here illegally, then all is forgiven and free and those of us who work everyday and bust our busts will be more than happy to foot the bill for you.All the while we will continue to live with the fear of being hurt because the cost of insurance for someone like my wife and making 60k a year is more than our house payment. sorry Obama but i chose to keep a roof over my head and reliable transportation so i CAN work and support my family without relying on my government to do it for me. Might be hard to comprehend when all the politicians have free health care for life, let them live like us!
Amen brother. If you are trying to explain any of this to a liberal they are never going to listen. They think anybody that makes more money than someone else should give the lower income person their hard earned dollar. Of course, it doesn’t apply to the liberal democrat that has more money than most of us. The bible says if you don’t work you don’t eat. Which goes back to if you are unable to work, of course we want to help. God says we should help the needy. He didn’t say we are to let the “government” which is supposed to work for us make us help the needy. It is God’s will that we help. The other problem is that a lot of people don’t believe in God. But they will. I hope things get better for you and your wife and God has mercy on our once Great country.
The better translation is “if you are unwilling to work, you don’t eat”. Closer to how you say we should help the needy.
I don’t believe in a god, but I do believe in the Constitution:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, PROMOTE THE GENERAL WELFARE, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The problem is not religious. I know plenty of people who claim to be Christian, yet couldn’t care less about anybody who doesn’t look and dress like them. In fact, some of the Most judgemental and inconsiderate people I’ve met call themselves Christian.
We’ve been programmed to be consumers and the more we can stockpile, the closer we are to the unobtainable American dream. When greed is in charge, the greedy will not contribute unless the law forces them to. Even when laws are in place to make them contribute to the welfare of the minimum-wage slaves they used to build their fortunes, they use every trick in the book to avoid paying the taxes they legally owe.
I do agree with the administrator on one point; Party politics have once again blocked the path of real working reform. Republicans in Congress sliced and diced Obamacare just like they neutered Clinton’s welfare reform in 1996. If I had a voice, I would call what they did in both cases unconstitutional.
Nothing has changed, nothing will change, as long as the GOP keeps playing the same dirty tricks and toeing the party line NO MATTER WHAT. Most of them can’t stand their current Presidential candidate, and it’s not even because he’s one of the criminal tax-dodgers who has screwed over every average working person he’s come into contact with. They’re not backing him, they’re backing THE PARTY. It’s a cult.
I personally vote Dem, although I don’t agree with everything they do. In a two party system, they’re the lesser of two evils. My political views actually combine elements of Libertarianism and Socialism.
Thanks to the Christian-Commercial conspiracy of the early decades of the 20th century that spawned our current more more more “American Dream” attitude of mindless greed equaling patriotism, we need laws to promote the general welfare, AND fewer regulations blocking those who need help from actually getting it, ergo less administration fees driving up healthcare costs.
That’s complete BS and you know it. Obamacare is a failure and EVERYBODY knows it we need the GOP to fix your screwup and how dare you put your trash on someone else. Own up to the fact that you messed up and screwed over every LEGAL citizen in America thank god for trump he’ll fix this mess
When I hear talk like this, such bitter and hateful talk with so few facts, my immediate reaction is to be snooty. Instead I’d just point to this:
http://factmyth.com/the-republican-sixth-party-strategy-and-the-big-switch/
It describes how some right-wing media drills really negative stuff into people’s heads. That makes it hard to have a rational tit-for-tat conservative and liberal debate. Conservatives have great ideas, but Trump can’t magically fix everything. if you are paying attention to the current state of healthcare that is exactly the conversation going on (the one where people work together for solutions, not just slander).
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The biggest problem I’m finding is that while I can find something I can more or less afford – the deductible (most around 13,000 a year) make it impossible for me to use. I would be paying for something i could never make use of, and end up without enough money for my medications and required doctor visits.
It’s enough to make this grown woman cry. I really thought this was going to save us – but the government of my state (texas) and others like it have sabotoged the system – hurting a large majority of the people they claim to protect – just to get their personal digs in at a president they don’t like.
Too bad they dont have to suffer like we do. They’d change their tune in a heartbeat.
Sorry. You sound like one of the people that thinks hard working taxpayers should pay to take care of you. Once all the taxpayers get tired of footing all the bills for people that want a free ride or can’t find a decent job they are going to have to do something to change this. I really don’t know what can be done. But at some point there will be so many people getting handouts that there will not be anyone to get the handout from.
I too can’t afford my premium as a middle age woman. The offered plans are a joke. $ 618.00 a month and the deductible is so high I will be bankrupt before I can use it. A male friend older then me pays $218 a month for better coverage.
We will be bankrupt as seniors if we have medical bills .
$618 is very high, is that through work or through the private market? The private market should have cheaper options in most regions (certainly the lowest cost plan for any age in a given state is cheaper).
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I just went through the Marketplace and renewed my application for coverage in 2016 and it is saying that my family will have to pay at the minimum of $713 a month!! We don’t qualify for a tax break for some reason and this puts the monthly premiums well over 14% of our income. Our mortgage is only $60 more than this so called affordable care. My wife and both kids are currently on Medicaid but can’t get off of it because the local office is saying that they are not making any changes to any plans, but the Marketplace says that we make too much money for any of them to qualify for Medicaid so the website is saying that we are to pay over $700 a month now for insurance. So we will essentially be paying for double coverage which is what I get for trying to be honest on the application. This is absolutely not affordable for my family!! I have just submitted the application but I will refuse to choose any plan with premiums that high. So I guess we are stuck paying the fines at the end of the year if we are able to afford those. Eventually we will become buried in debt to the government and be forced to apply for welfare assistance and food stamps. Should have moved to another country a long time ago I suppose…..thanks United States government.
There is likely a missing piece of the puzzle here. If you make less than 138% of the poverty level for your family size, and your state expanded Medicaid, then you qualify for Medicaid. If your state didn’t expand eligibility may be shifting because of the age of your children. You need to find out the specific rules for your state and make sure your a projected the right income for 2016. It is up to you to attest to and prove your income, and if the state feels the need, it is up to them to prove that you are incorrect. If they can’t then you get to claim the assistance you are due.
The guess here is that, you live in a state that didn’t expand Medicaid, but you were getting it due to your children (technically getting CHIP). In this case you need to look at CHIP eligibility levels. You shouldn’t just get frustrated and forgo coverage, our guess is that you can take a deeper look and ensure cost assistance on coverage.
The $618.00 is a silver plan through the Marketplace. By the time I pay it, co-pays and all the the bills come in as they cover zero until I get to my deductable , ( they do cover some preventative) I still can’t go to the doctor. I live in Ohio.
These plans are a joke and not affordable.My work dropped healthcare forcing us to go to Ob amacare.For a 36 year old woman in Ohio my not so cheap premium will be like $300 a month for a bronze plan with a $6000 deductible.I have to choose if a car and housing is more important or healthcare .I make less that $33,000- and do no t qualify for any credits.This is insane
If you don’t have coverage through work then you DO qualify for tax credits. Call HealthCare.Gov. Your premium should be lower than $300 after tax credits unless you choose a more expensive plan. https://obamacarefacts.com/federal-poverty-level/
I’m trying to find a plan like I had last yr I pd 140. P mo which was high enough, I got a part time job increasing our family income to 48000.( For 4 people) and I qualify for 35 dollar subsidy this year and the cheapest plan I can find is 311???!!! Really??? I went to the doctor 1 time and didn’t even use my insurance cause they don’t accept ANY Obama plans… So…worthless… Waste of money. How do I go from 140 to 311??? Same plan goes up when you never use it, I get it shoulda racked up some hefty bills to get my $ worth. Bitter, just a bit.
I paid for obamacare premiums last year for me and my two kids could barely make the ends meet now this year the plan i was on is being cancelled and i have to pick a new plan only two choices both cost more than the plan i was on i still paid over $2000 in out of pocket medical care costs because the deductibles are too high so i basically paid the insurance company over $1500 for the year in premiums and they paid my doctors a total of $167 that’s it, this healthcare act is stupid, its just the president getting more money for big pharma by selling out the american people and stealing our hard earned money!
I don’t think it’s Obama who we blame for Phrama.
Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and more than half take two, Mayo Clinic and Olmsted Medical Center researchers say. Antibiotics, antidepressants and painkilling opioids are most commonly prescribed, their study found.
http://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/nearly-7-in-10-americans-take-prescription-drugs-mayo-clinic-olmsted-medical-center-find/
I won’t say anymore, but do a bit of critical thinking and try to figure out why rates are high and our focus is on fighting each other rather than demanding more reform.
I am 58 years old, a single woman now that my last child has left home. I make $65k a year in the city of Seattle. The cost of living in Seattle is almost as high as California. I lost my home during the Great Recession, after working hard for 25 years… I was laid off from my job and couldn’t find another one fast enough to stop the process. I became close to homeless before bouncing back and finding this job. I am supposed to pay $700 per month for health insurance (silver plan with 6500 deductible). I did it for 2016. I didn’t have to see a doctor ONCE. I have been forced to use credit cards to stay afloat. I am going to have to file bankruptcy in order to survive. 58 years old, worked my whole entire life, have paid taxes, struggled to get where I am, and THIS is going to finally take me down. THIS. I have no words for the terrible disappointment I feel in our country. I voted for Trump, even though I am a democrat. Why? Because NO ONE WHO HAS A HISTORY AS A POLITICIAN HAS EVER KEPT HIS WORD. My last hope is that someone who has been a businessman, not a politician with big companies in his pocket, will see that healthcare reform MUST be changed or the middle class will be gone. I have seriously thought about just committing suicide to escape what seems to be happening. My children are grown and I will be working for NOTHING until I am 75 years old, before I am granted the blessings of a social security retirement that won’t nearly be enough to survive on. My generation is screwed; if there isn’t something done, FAST, we are looking at the next 3 generations also being screwed out of any kind of hope for a decent life if they aren’t earning in excess of $200k per year. It broke my heart to read one poster’s story about how he was so proud to be making over $100k and find out… it’s just not enough. HOW CAN THAT BE? How can this be allowed to happen?
Ridiculous! How can my deductible be $4000 higher than my expected salary? What are you trying to achieve with this bogus healthcare system? Colorado is already about to go kaput on this, NY is having trust issues along with lack of funds…how can one afford healthcare if it is beyond feasible for one to pay? Sorry, I have a wife, children and children I pay child support for. Just tax it…
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I just tried to enroll. I’M NOT… my government will not force this upon me
If you have trouble enrolling call HealthCare.Gov directly. Technically you aren’t forced to get coverage, you just have to pay a tax if you decline to get coverage. You can refuse to get coverage and to pay the tax, but the IRS can withhold the amount you owe from your next refund.
That is the same thing as being forced to get insurance when you cannot afford it. You are penalized for not being able to afford it. So now they want to tax you on products you don’t even buy and can’t use. How is that even remotely fair?
The underlying concept that we all need healthcare, but most people can’t absorb the cost, so we need a collective fund is pretty solid. Tackling this with a tax is a solid idea. The devil is in the details as they say. It’s not fair to force someone to buy unaffordable coverage, the goal of the ACA is affordability. Where it falls short we need congress and the people to stand up and demand more efficient solutions. Lots of the ACA does amazing things, but it doesn’t excuse away one lick of the bad.
“The underlying concept that we all need healthcare, but most people can’t absorb the cost, so we need a collective fund is pretty solid. Tackling this with a tax is a solid idea.”
^^^No what it is is Communism. And everyone knows it.
I explain the nature of insurance as a group fund and you yell “Communism”… Ok there Senator McCarthy. Yeesh. Should I bother with the history lesson or are you just being inflammatory? Even the Socialist running for President decries Communism, along with me, and i’m sure 99.99% of our readers.
We live in Montgomery Co. MD. Our monthly income for this year will be $5432 net. However, after taxes, what we really bring in per month is $4162. Mortgage payment is $1300, utilities cost approx. $500, non-health insurances cost approx. $400, and food $1,200. That leaves us with $762. Currently we pay about $200 for subsidized health insurance for the family. I have the BRCA gene (requiring vigilant monitoring from various specialists), have asthma (with expensive medication), and tend to get sick often (requiring many trips to other doctors and specialists). After health insurance, I have $562 with which i must pay for all my copays, medicines, as well as buy clothes for the kids and other obvious life extras.
Our expected net income for 2016 is $46,000. Yet I will still have to pay around $400 for a reasonable Obama-Care health care plan with a low-ish deductible (b/c we don’t have enough to pay the high deductible plan’s copays and deductibles). Still, I’ll have to pay around $40 for specialists and who-knows-how-much for prescriptions. Our monthly income next year will be around $3,000, but we will have $3,400 in expenses. How do you expect us to pay $400/month (before copays etc) for healthcare? I just don’t understand.
Well at your expected MAGI your insurance will be capped about about 9.5% of income for the second lowest cost silver plan. So that is let’s round up and say $4,600 for the year. Well of course that is about your $400 a month. With out-of-pocket costs it can really be a lot to deal with. You can save money by using an HSA and getting a bronze plan, but that is only if you bank on not needing your coverage (and letting it act as catastrophic coverage). You can also look into other deductions.
So bottom line. No, not fair. And, arguably not affordable with the rising cost of healthcare. But taking a step back we can find a few ways to lower costs and taxes and increase cost assistance.
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People in Late 20’s expected to pay $230 for healthcare coverage on top of student loan repayments?… forget it.
A person should never pay that in their late 20’s unless their income is over 400% FPL. People in there 20’s are more likely to pay $20 after cost assistance than $200. That doesn’t mean this would never happen (certainly could happen through an employer getting an unfair shake). Just, I mean we have a list of the average and lowest cost plans, and know what cost assistance caps premiums at, we know national averages… So, essentially we can be upset about costs (especially cost sharing) all day, but saying $230 for someone in their late 20’s is just giving me a red flag that someone is missing something. Call HealthCare.Gov.
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I am 29, in good health, make about $35,000 per year (pre tax) and my lowest cost option (for a plan I would not be able to afford to USE) is $180ish per month. I pay child support, rent, utilities, food, commuting costs, and I really cannot see where I would get the extra income to cover this.
If I dont pay it though, I have to pay a tax. I dont understand how this works, or why someone my age in good health is forced to pay over $2000 a year for a health insurance plan I couldnt afford to use.
It isn’t an easy situation to be in. $2,000 is rather expensive as it’s just premiums and not cost sharing amounts. This isn’t too different from what coverage would have been before the law (adjusted for the rising cost of premiums), but that doesn’t ease the burden now that the coverage is mandated.
If you max out an HSA you may be able to drop your income to about 250% FPL, this will net you more tax credits and cap your out-of-pocket costs. You can also, at 29, potentially find a slightly cheaper plan with cost assistance (even at $35,000).
I’m a few years older than you and I pay about the same price for a bronze BCBS PPO without cost assistance. Of course, pricing varies so much from region to region it’s hard to say.
Certainly we can all agree that the cost of living, especially for those raising children and paying off debt, makes the “affordable” “unaffordable” rather quickly. This must be addressed and this is why we try to stress that further reform and not just ideologistic repeal is the best answer for America.
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HSAs are a joke too…so have your employer set money aside *in case* you need it for medical expenses; this lowers your income and saves you money on your monthly premium. So reaaaallllly, you’re not saving money because it’s still taken out of your check, and f you haven’t used it at the end of the year – your employer keeps its. Fail.
It is common to confusing FSAs with HSAs. Couldn’t be more different though. HSAs rock, FSAs are eh. You are thinking about FSAs. HSAs have no use it or lose it and have better tax perks cause you get the benefits not the employer.
The BCBS PPO is being discontinued in my state and the HMO they are forcing on me for myself and my new baby is the same cost…$650 per month. For my husband to carry us on his work ins it would be $300 more per month. He has student loans to repay and I have an autoimmune disease along with a new baby so even running my business has been put on hold. There is no way to get any assistance bc they say we make too much…however it’s all going towards paying medical bills from the birth and increasing HMO costs that won’t cover the doctors we have previously seen. Sorry but I am not trusting my health to a doctor I can’t choose!
I need a regular health care plan with co-pays and affordable deductibles. I cannot afford the prices I was given in the marketplace. Last year I was even out of work, an unemployed single mom, and could not get affordable coverage and wound up in the hospital. so now I have high medical bills to top it all off. This Obamacare is the worst idea ever!!!!!!!!!
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I make 55k a year, and have bills that i live by. Not over my limits, and single guy has to pay $384 a month for shoddy coverage… No win here… Just a loss.. Terrible law..
Every plan available is a high deductible plan. What is the point of even paying for insurance if the lowest deductible is $750/person and the premium with a subsidy is $400/month? That is not a good investment of money.
If I choose a truly high deductible plan, it’s $5500/person and the premium is $75/month. That plan will never be used unless a major injury or illness hits. My husband and I would still have to pay out of pocket for our needed prescriptions and will still avoid going to the doctor because we cannot afford it.
We’re barely making it as it is, it seems like a better gamble to hope that nobody gets sick and keep our $75/month.
Totally agree!! I can’t afford it AT ALL!
I hate obamacare. I can’t afford to pay anything extra a month for any plan and we shouldn’t be FORCED to get coverage if we don’t want to. It’s just an extra bill thrown an bet me, then we’re penalized for not having it and it goes up every month!
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I was on medicaid. I recently married my husband after 5.5 years. now my household income is $68,000. My household does not pay my half of the rent, utilities and so forth. I pay my own expenses. In order for my plan to be “affordable” I have to set money aside for my $7,000 deductible. on top of the $200 monthly premium. Lets Get Real. We lived together for 2 years while i was on medicaid, we’re married and now i could magically pay $200 per month. News Flash! Brooklyn New York is expensive to live in as in.
Medicaid and subsidies are both a little weird in that they can incentivize not getting married in situations where one family member earns less than the other. If you get married your best advantage tax-wise is likely sharing a family plan. Look into HSA’s and High Deductible family plans on the marketplace.
I got out of the military this year and I am living on the GI Bill just to barely pay rent. If I pay for the minimum coverage, I don’t have the money to pay rent or eat. So you can take this and shove it up your @$$. Arrest me if you want to.
– Proud Vet, unimpressed with the country he served.
Well you won’t get arrested, the most the IRS can do is withhold your tax refund. If you are making enough to barely pay rent you likely qualify for free or low cost coverage through Medicaid (if your state expanded) or for generous tax credits between 100% – 400% FPL. Also my first reaction was “where is TRICARE and the VA and related benefits”? Is that what is causing the problem, or do you no longer have those options and are referring to the private market?
I just cancelled my health insurance today. I was paying 200.00 a month with a 5500 deductible on a plan offered by my employer (for the FACT folks here…that’s 7900.00 a year paid out of my pocket before my insurance even kicks in). Our contribution is increasing by 5% next year. I checked the covered CA site, best they have to offer is 191.00/mo and 4500 deductible before the insurance would finally pay 60% of services and prescriptions (which I wouldn’t qualify for because my employer offers insurance). I am a single dad with 2 kids and only make 18.00 an hour. I’m sick of hearing 8% blah blah…HSA blah blah…MAGI blah blah! Fact is I went to the doctor maybe 2 times at 90.00 per visit and had a few prescriptions that cost 9.00 at Target (which I could have covered out of pocket with just 1 month of premiums). All year long my kids have gone without some things so I could be compliant with this ridiculous law.
I can’t believe for the first time in my 45 years of life as an American citizen, I am being forced to purchase a product or be fined for not doing so as a condition of my citizenship. Obamacare was never intended to make insurance more affordable, it was simply the next step the LEFT took to move this country closer to a single payer system. Create chaos in a system until it collapses, then have the government rush in to the rescue. Before Mr. Obama pulled this stunt, every job I have had the last 20 years offered to cover my health insurance in full, I only had to pay additional if I selected a family plan. It used to be called “benefits”. Remember those, it was what employers used to give employees as a reward for working hard and being an asset to their companies? Only how unfair was that? I mean those poor entry level job folks at McDonalds who only work 20 hours a week didn’t get the same benefits…so lets get rid of them all together, right?
I totally understand the LEFT’S reasoning…I mean what a perfect way to force income redistribution on people. Why bring the bottom up when you can simply bring the middle down? I’m choosing not to participate in this anymore, I work my butt off to try and give my kids a decent life. I earned this money all on my own. I got this job all on my own. I choose to raise my kids with the money I earn…YES ALL ON MY OWN! My kids need this money far more than any silly insurance exchange, and it’s worth a 700.00 fine taken from my taxes to not spend 2400.00 a month on premiums for insurance I would most likely never use.
If the FACT folks here believe this is such a great step in the right direction, maybe you should be asking yourself this. If it was such a great thing for America, why do you need to force every citizen to comply under threat of penalty? You know the answer, because if you left it up to the people that have to actually pay for it, there wouldn’t be anybody who would sign up for it.
Rant over! Thanks for reading.
The “mandate” isn’t for the people, it’s for the private insurers who would lose money without it (it’s been tried and proven). The healthcare industry employees a lot of people and accounts for a lot of our nations wealth. It’s not a simple thing.
Just make sure you are taking advantage of all your options including cost assistance and exemptions. Whether the healthcare system swings to single payer, goes back to the old way, or collapses under it’s own weight like you say, the important thing here is your family. It’s your right to forgo coverage (but exemptions may help that cost less). Also consider catastrophic coverage perhaps for your children if they are under 30.
And to be clear the last thing we (at ObamaCareFacts.com) want is to hear about a single working father who can’t afford coverage for himself and his family. It’s rather heartbreaking.
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Heartbreaking, and yet you do nothing about it.
Unusable insurance = no insurance.
I’d never claim anything against the insurance I have because the deductible is so high. If I pay cash at the hospital or doctor, they give a 50% off price. It would take a LOT of claims to get to the $13,000 deductible.
Mandated insurance is a fraud/sham on the American people.
Your concern for the insurance companies is touching. They have condemned multitudes to an early grave but your only concern is if they are making sufficient profit. You and Obama should “do lunch” and compare your stock portfolios!
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This is spot on, exactly the problem. 5 kids here. Worked mt butt off as we have been trained to all our lives to finally start earning an income which freed me from any public assistance – and now, we live worse off than those on government assistance because of healthcare costs. So I can take a demotion, get medicaid and foodstamps, and be better off. Not cool.
Yeah crossing that threshold from subsidies to taxes isn’t fun. People expect, “Now that I make more I will have more!” This ignores the progressive tax / subsidy system that everyone is paying into (I mean obviously not the fraction of the 1% with their capital gains and offshore accounts, but the rest of us). There is no easy step up where $1 equates to $1. But specifically the step up from assistance to not is a little disenfranchising as you lose subsidies and gain taxes. This is something that should be continually addressed as we do humane and moral things such as care for the sick and the poor. Perhaps at some point congress will start working together rather than playing tug of war with subsidies and taxes.
Awesome. Simply awesome comment. Agreed.
Thank you for your service. It is ashame. It is unbelievable what this horrible government (to put it nicely) has done to our country. God bless you, I hope everything turns around for us all. I hope and pray that we can get people in government that want us to have decent jobs and repeal obamcare. That joker keeps saying it needs more reform. If the problem was people not being able to get insurance because of pre existing conditions, why didn’t they just fix that and leave the rest alone? Why? Because it’s just one more way of this government to get us all under their control. If someone don’t fix it everything is going to collapse. The government can’t keep controlling and stealing people’s hard earned money. Something is going to break. The only hope I have is in God. He has always carried me through and I know He will continue to do so. I hope and pray everyone reading this will come out on top. God bless you all. I’ve been reading this stuff for hours. Not much positive coming from any of it. I’m going to stop reading now. Very upsetting.
I ALSO AM VERY UPSET AT BEING FORCED TO BUY THIS SO CALLED AFFORDABLE HEALTHCARE. I MAKE APPROX. 39000 A YEAR, THE LOWEST BRONZE PLAN WITH A HIGH DEDUCTIBLE, AROUND $300.00 A MONTH( THAT’S WITH MY CREDIT ). I CANT AFFORD THESE PREMIUMS.. AND BECAUSE OF THE DEDUCTIBLES, I WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO AFFORD TO USE IT.. I AM PAYING FOR HEALTH CARE THAT I WONT EVEN USE.. THEN ON TOP OF IT WILL BE PENALIZED BY THE GOVERNMENT IF I DON’T PURCHASE IT.. WHAT ABOUT ALL MY OTHER LIVING EXPENSES?????. AM I REALLY GOING TO BE MADE TO CHOOSE BETWEEN PAYING FOR INSURANCE I CANT USE, AND EVERY DAY LIVING EXPENSES… ABSOLUTELY CRAZY!!!!!!! AND THEN BE PENALIZED IF I CANT AFFORD IT!!!!!. I HAVE ALWAYS WORKED VERY HARD, AND IT IS GETTING HARDER TO MAINTAIN FROM MONTH TO MONTH, WHILE SOME SIT BACK ,DO THE BARE MINIMUM AND ASSISTANCE FOR EVERYTHING.
Upon completing my application the cheapest plan offered was about $237 per month but there are not any local doctors in network so the next cheapest is 287 a month. which was the third cheapest. I am a single adult with full custody of a 9 year old (she has medicaid)
My MAGI is $26,935 and based on the lowest plan with no in network doctors around the cost is over 8% of my MAGI
I have not sent in my paystubs which confirm the above information yet; After i send them in will i get a different premium? the website is no clear about the process. my employer said that if i dont apply and enroll they will be required to enroll me in there plan and deduct 400 a month which is even higher. Any advice?
after taxes i make about
$2000 a month
-1400 for rent,300 childcare,50 phone bill,200 utilities i already can barley buy food and necessities for me and my child and my childs mother does not work do she does not pay any child support. there is nothing left over for insurance and i make to much money to qualify for medicaid- i would have to make 15,000 a year to qualify
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Your employer plan costs more than 9.5% of MAGI so have them fill out an employer coverage tool and get marketplace coverage.
It seems like you are quoting the cost before cost assistance. After cost assistance your coverage should be substantially cheaper.
Employers can’t force you to take coverage, you can opt-out, have them fill out a form, and shop on the Marketplace. Ask HealthCare.Gov about unaffordable employer coverage and employer coverage tools (the form the employer would fill out when you opt-out).
This is general advice, you’ll want to double check how it all applies to you before taking action.
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Me and my husband make to much to get any assistance anywhere but to go through his plan at work would cost 700+ monthly for a family of four. That is to much but because he is offered health insurance through his work that is considered affordable (just for him it is 160/month) we cannot get help to pay. Now there will be a penalty if we do not get insurance but how can we afford 700+ a month!! And that is with the highest deductible plan too!! Thanks Obama for nothing!!!
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I cannot afford any of these plans. This process doesn’t take into account debt. We have over $70,000 in student loan debt, 7500 in credit card debt, rent of $700. Phone, gas, food, medicine for my wife. I have 0 left at the end of each month. The only plan that is close to what I could pay has a $10000 deductible and it is only 50/50. I gross 16,800 and my wife about $12000. Too much income to really qualify for much help, but no where near enough to buy health insurance. So, I get threatened with a $700+ tax?! I’m screwed and we really need health insurance because my wife has a medical condition.
You are right, debt is something many Americans and America as a whole is dealing with. It’s perhaps one of the biggest problems in America right now, well not just debt but interest on debt to be more exact. It’s unsustainable for a country as it is for a family.
If I get sick I just go to the doctor. It usually costs about 100.00. If I buy Obamacare I won’t be able to afford to the doctor because of the premiums. It makes no sense. The deductible is way too high to do me any good. I guess I won’t go to the doctor any more.
Not that it’s much consolation, but you do get the “free” wellness visit and preventive care on your plan. This offsets some of the cost.
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You, sir or madam or in between, are a total idiot.
This is insanity. I am a 52 yr old Breast cancer survivor and I cannot afford even the marketplace insurance. I make 30k a year and I have the BARE minimum of expenses, THE cheapest rent in town, car insurance, cell phone, electricity, fuel for my car and groceries….With this insurance plan I can choose between a higher monthly premium or a higher deductible. Great! With a higher monthly deductible I will have to choose between rent,food, electricity or driving to work!!. With a higher deductible I will not be able to afford the yearly testing that I need to see if I am still cancer free ( and no I can do mammograms) or any of the surgeries that I also still need. It’s beginning to look like my best option is to quit my job and go on welfare!!! I have been paying into Social Security and taxes my whole life and this is just ridiculous!!
And before the ‘responder’ tells me about the MAGi or any other CRAP< I have been trying to figure out a way to afford this for MONTHS and nothing is working! And and guess what? I work with a woman who has no history of cancer, is my age and only makes 3 $ less than me a month and she is only paying $90 a month and the best I can get is $250!!!
Face it, the system is wrong and screwed up. I wish I could sue Obama/Pelosi for their "Read it AFTER it passes" …..Too bad we can't make THEM use this insurance program they dreamed up…I am FED UP and frustrated beyond belief.
I’m not sure what to say. You lay out facts here that say you should have access to that same plan at a similar price. If you don’t want to hear about household income and how that caps premium prices then OK. This then is for others:
In this case we would suggest looking at household income as that should result in you getting a similarly priced plan $90 (region affects price this is the same, income affects price this is roughly the same, and age affects price accounting for a small difference, but preexisting conditions don’t affect price).
To others in this boat the frustrations are valid, but don’t let that dissuade you from doing a little more homework. The facts laid out here don’t add up, it sounds like this person is quoting costs before cost assistance and not after.
All this new healthcare is for is insurance companies. I would have to pay 250 a month with ridiculous copays. This did clear 1 thing up though, It does matter what party I voted for they are all crooks. But hey hold up I will just cut a week of food out a month, and live in my car so I guess its not that bad. I thought that this was a free country where I chose whether or not, If I was nursing off Medicare fine. But I am not all this is, is more money for the insurance companies.
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I cannot afford obamacare.I have insured. My self for about 15 years as employer faxed out health insurance I am 56 year of age. And in good health my insurance expense. Before I could usually hold to 300.00 to 360.00 with low deductible about 2500.00 with the marketplace for 2016 united health care bronze 454.20. 5500.00 deductible
Currently I am insured with same company same insurance plan only it is a short term plan I
Am paying 300.00 2500.00 deductible including a10000.00 rider for medical. Emergency
Even given the higher cost of the major medical without cost assistance it’s possible a better deal for you. Short term will mean you pay the fee so you’ll have to factor that in to your total healthcare spending. Make sure to look into all health plan options, cost assistance, and tax breaks you can take as an employer.
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I rated this 1 for NOT an answer. I can’t afford it, can’t afford the tax which is another name for the penalty and just flat out can’t AFFORD it at all. This is the one area I agree with the Republicans on. THIS IS NOT AFFORDABLE!!!! It’s not affordable even if you qualify for a subsidy. As a SMALL, TINY, SMALL business owner, I have no clue what I make each year until our taxes are done the following year since it depends on the profits in the business and there is no way to know that until the bottom line is filled out either. If I guess wrong, then I could owe the IRS. If business is slow, which it usually is over winter and into the spring, I can’t afford to owe the IRS.
My husbands employer offers health insurance through work. It is only $70 a month for him, but $1400 a month for a family. Since his single premium is so cheap, I have been told we do not qualify for a subsidy. This is just crazy. That is more than our house payment. How is this even a little affordable?
You may qualify to have your family exempt (one or more members). This would allow you to forgo coverage, or depending on income compared to the cost of the employer plan, shop on the Marketplace. You should contact HealthCare.Gov ASAP.
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This insurance is unaffordable to those of us in the middle. I am in California the cost of living has skyrocketed. I barely make ends meet. I can’t afford 352 per month for a crappy plan that I can’t even go to the doctor if sick on and prescriptions aren’t covered. I have panic attacks about how I am supposed to live. I am 49 single and the Magi and Agi is a joke it doesn’t lower anything if you are on your own. It literally has made me suicidial thinking about growing older and how can I survive. I have purchased insurance all my life and this is ridiculous, it should go by the net not the gross. I have to work 10 days to get paid 5.3 days. I do not get that back in taxes. Also as a freelance person I could take part of my health costs off my taxes and that has been taken away. So give me a legitimate answer on how to afford this healthcare I am forced to buy. It has taken competition out of the marketplace, all of the private individual plans are jacked up and cost the same with the same horrible narrow networks. Before I paid 145 with a 4500 deductible hsa with 3 doctors visits. I want to die before I hit 50 and the rates go up again because I am already losing my home because of rent increases, work more hours than I humanly can, I have no money for anything but necessities because I have to pay 342 a month in health insurance because I make 36000 which is 20000 take home rent 15000, car insurance 1300, plus phone etc where does paying 4104 a year on something I can’t use or change. This is a bronze plan This isn’t right. Tell me how do I survive
You are right, I think everyone should get a reasonable cost of living deduction that factors in child care, rent, car insurance, healthcare costs, education, etc at lower incomes. $342 for a premium and $2,800 /mo in car insurance and rent for someone making $36,000 are both probably a little higher than would be comfortable.
So what do I do? I need to know, I am on the.verge of losing everything and in the past I used to be able to switch health plans for a lower premium. Now I am trapped. Obamacare is a nightmare. Tell me what my options are.
I can’t afford Obama care at 800 a month. I don’t have insurance because I can’t afford it. I am even behind on rent. I need medical insurance. Please help me! I need insurance and I can’t afford the prices they are giving me please help
Make sure you are understanding household income and family size. Then look at tax deductions like HSAs. Make sure you are going to HealthCare.Gov too. If the cheapest plan is reallly $800 you likely qualify for an affordability exemption.
My husband and I are self employed our annual estimate can very widely. This Obamacare is absolutely not affordable for us or anyone else how is self employed. I was trying to be honest on our yearly income and came up with ridiculous UN-affordable premiums. Our premium last year started out at $901 per month then in September of this year it went up to $1,245 per month because I hit 55. Now Blue Cross Blue Shield sent me a letter stating they were getting rid of PPO’s and going to all HMO and our monthly premium will be $1,655. How can someone afford this amount every month, let alone the extremely high deductibles and be self Employed? If you had something major that went wrong you still would have to get alone to pay the high deductables and the co-pays. I thought this Obamacare was suppose to help but instead it has made it extremely difficult for the middle class who works hard just to make a living. Our government needs to fix the health and start regulating the insurance companies more.
Wow, that is crazy. You obviously aren’t qualifying for subsidies based on your household size and household income. If you were you’d be getting cheaper coverage. Things are getting out of hand for some. It’s not just about regulating insurance companies, healthcare providers and manufacturers, and drug makers all need to step up to the plate together.
This is ridiculous. I am off my parents insurance plan this year and the cheapest plan you can give me is +/- $200 a month Catastrophic? There is no way I can afford that every month when I already pay about $300 a month in credit card bills, another $300 on college loans (which is still not the min payment they want), plus other bills associated with the cost of living. I turn 26 next month and I suppose this means that I am not worthy of health insurance since NC does not allow people like me to get medicaid. This entirely sucks. I have lost faith in the health care system. I cannot afford health care and this realization has broken me.
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Nothing covers my family! My husband was laid off after 29 yrs. 29 yrs! I have never in my life be without insurance till now. I used to sell it for goodness sake! If you would have ever told me that insurance would be required by federal law I would have called you crazy. Now look at us, mandated to pay prices for little or no real coverage that are 3 times or more what they were 10 years ago, this is insane! We can’t afford the monthly premium and don’t qualify for the tax credits because WE DON’T MAKE ENOUGH! How’s that for crazy?! Neither one of us have a job at this moment and we don’t qualify for medicaid because we have a savings account. So what is a person supposed to do???!!!! I’m applying for exceptions but I have to wait for responses which will put me past the deadline. The one play I was looking at changed about 2 days ago, dropping my doctor and increasing the monthly from about $120 to $960 and the deductible went from $500 to $6000. What the.. is that? What would happen if I had already committed to that plan? I have never seen such a blatant robbery of the American people as this. This is worse than what started the revolutionary war. The tyranny of the government has got to be stopped.
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Where should I begin?! I have been struggling to figure this insurance stuff out since it started. I have met with several places that help you enroll and figure everything out for you and each time I get told that its too expensive for me and that I should just take the penalty! I just did my application….again because I really am determined to get myself and my family covered, but I don’t see how it will work financially for us. We just recently bought a new home, so we have a mortgage that is a little higher then what we would like, but with the PMI thats added we have not choice. I have medical bills that we are struggling to pay, credit cards, cars, food, and everything else that comes along with living! Yes, we know the credit card bills are our fault, but we have them and there is nothing we can do now about it. Does obama care take all these other costs into the equation??!! NO, so I am getting offered these premiums that would make us really count our pennies. For what? The Bronze plans are just a waste of money. They don’t cover anything. I see no point. So instead I am just going to be penalized for not wasting my money that I really can’t afford to use for health care on a fee. Thanks Mr. President. You are really helping me and my family live a better life. Also I find it very amusing that they make the cheapest bronze plans just at that magic number where you are supposed to “afford” it so you can’t be exempt from paying….
Just like others say this is for the wealthy and the poor and mid range working hard family gets screwed. We make roughly 68,000 a year, 4 kids and the cheapest bronze plans are 453.00 (which cover hardly anything)
At your income versus family size you should start and end your Journey at HealthCare.Gov. Go for a Silver plan that is HSA eligible, find a one with a decent network and take a good look at copays and deductible. Then claim your tax credits. It’d doubtful this won’t be the best option. But if you feel you need to shop around compare also Gold and Bronze and consider an HMO versus PPO.
You can also take this little blip to a local broker and get help from them.
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Make 44k my two kids are on FL chip. For me and my wife it’s $369 a month for me and her with bronze plan. Doesn’t seem too bad until you see the 13k I’d have to pay out of pocket before insurance would be usable. This is cheapest no dental etc etc even when active pays only 60% . 369 is about everything left over to live and be a family. Movies and eat out couple times month. Extra school things clothes etc. We could pay the fine sure. Doctors won’t see us if sick. So we either pay you for nothing cause we’d never get a thing for money or just die. We may could get apt with card but would have to lie and say we could pay the entire cost. If we don’t pay you you take more at end of year for not being able to pay. It’s disgraceful and I for one am glad this will all be gutted soon. You’ve took a great idea you blame gop for not letting it pass in way that would work. Then knowing it would kill middle class your the ones that still pushed it instead of doing the right thing.
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Obamacare is a joke! In my state middle class is considered from 30k to 100k!! I’m a single dad and with me and two kids I received a tax credit. The cheapest insurance was 180/month for the low end bronze pkg. Which is still stupid because you pay 100% until you’ve reached your deductible. RETARDED!! My son is going to get insurance from state through his mom so I re applied….now my premiums went up to almost 300/month because now I do not get a tax credit. Are we supposed to eat ramen noodles and are the kids not to do extra curricular activities??? I do everything for my kids, that’s why I drive a 20+year old car and still live in an apartment. And now I can’t afford health insurance. Not only that, I get fined now? 20% of my income?? So, do I quit my 401k plan so I can afford insurance? Or take them out of sports/activities so they can become unhealthy kids?? Wait, so if I have 20 kids, which means more medical visits…shots, injuries, etc…..then my insurance is free. AND I’d get free food, rent, and daycare!! But if I just have or “claim” one child, I get NO help and pay EVERYTHING!! Now I know why people drive nicer cars that are in “poverty” than me. NOTHING MAKES SENSE IN THIS COUNTRY. It was much better before OBAMACARE STARTED. BOTH MY KIDS WERE INSURED BY THE STATE BACK THEN!! THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE!!!!!!!
This is a sad sad time to be in middle America. If you are in your 30’s and 40’s and have a full time job, then you are just shit out of luck. Most people our age have young kids who cost money to raise. A house and cars that are not even close to being paid off. But which we need for our kids and jobs. But we also need healthcare! And none of us are asking for a handout, but with daily life expenses and cost of living these premiums are ridiculous! Before Obamacare, my whole family was insured and we could afford it and everything was fine. No one can afford Obamacare!! It’s a terrible feeling knowing you can not afford to get insurance and keep your family healthy. You are putting AMERICANS health at risk. You can simply not pay for something you can not afford. We can currently only afford to insure my son, he’s insured we are not. But hey tax me and punish me for not physically being able to afford your healthcare. That just makes it even more heartbreaking. Sincerely- Middle Class America!
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I agree with What do you care, Ramon, LM and others. I’m a single 57 year old hard working hourly male. Have been working for 42 of those years. This Obamacare has ruined my life. The most I had to pay for insurance before the nightmare was about $170 a month. I only make about $40k a year. I’m hourly in the retail industry. I live in Dallas Texas. I signed up in 2013 to be covered in 2014. I made 39,000 in 2013. Because of being a hard worker and getting a small hourly raise due to my hard work and overtime I ended up making more than allowed by about $2500 for 2014. I got penalized and had to pay back IRS for my monthy assistance about $3000. So much for the American dream. Work hard, hope to get ahead, oh but wait the government going to take it back. Also all the plans I could afford, my doctor I’ve been going to for over 12years didn’t take. 2014 I paid $240 per month with assistance. $70 a month more than what I use to pay. Then end of 2014 the insurance company was raising the premium 45% -Blue Cross of Texas. 2015 was paying $255 and going broke because if I work more. I will get penalized again on insurance I hardly ever use. Oh and now the insurance is going up again for 2016 another 25%. All of these are the cheapest bronze HMO’s with the assistance. I looked the other day on Healthcare.gov and the cheapest I can get with assistance will cost me $290. All it’s down is increase, WHY? How do you call that affordable.
If ObamaCareFacts knows of something I’m doing wrong please help. I haven’t had a peaceful day/night in 3 years because of this.
It has only been a nightmare. This required government law has only brought major depression for this hard working voter. I can’t afford to live with the government controlled affordable health insurance and I can’t afford not too because I will penalized. So much for being rewarded for a job well done or working hard or a bonus because the IRS will penalize me for my non-affordable health care.
SO please stop preaching Affordable Health care because it’s not for me and many other hard working individuals. Oh and I haven’t been to a dentist or eye doctor in 3 years because I can’t afford that health care because I’ve been trying to afford this AffordableHealthCare.
And I’ll probably need a new car next year so if anyone knows of any
AffordableNewCar with paying AffordableHealthCare let me know but then again I could live in my car since I wont be able to afford a roof over my head but I’ll have AffordableHealthCare. I apologize for my rambling however this has law really upsets/angers me.
Right on, work hard and get screwed, be lazy and get rewarded
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The whole plan is just wrong. I am married and joint income is $54k, but I pay for all of my expenses and half of the household expenses with my income of $13k. For the bronze plan individual has a $6000 deductible, which means I pay cash up front for all visits, drugs and procedures and pay $282.97 a month for insurance. So now you have reduced my income by 46 percent and I really don’t have any insurance unless there is a catastrophe and I haven’t even paid income taxes yet. What is the point of me working at all? Thank God my husband has VA.
You are right. When one spouse makes less, but files jointly, they get taxed on household income. So I have to say, given the way taxes and the health law works, it may not be “fair” that you are responsible for the costs within your home. Tax credits are based on you splitting coverage costs.
The deductible for catastrophic is ridiculous. Lets say you have a major catastrophe in December with a 13,000 deductible. In January you have to pay the 13,000 again if you are still having medical problems from the catastrophe. I have a sister who has been too ill to work for years. Her main illness is sarcoidosis but she has a lot more problems, and her husband has worked hard all of his life as an engineer but because of his age he is being discriminated against now at his job and has tried for years now to get this looked at through all of the government agencies but to no avail because it will cost them so much to fight it and prove it. He has a lot of medical issues too that are costly. Anyway, he can’t stop working because he can’t afford the insurance for my sister if he retires early. Their premiums are now I believe $900 a month. With all of her medical needs, they pay out of pocket for the deductible each year and never reach where the insurance pays and then start all over again in January with the deductible. It is insane. They are dug into a nightmare of a life, in which they should have a descent life with his income, but it is never ending debt. She hasn’t been able to work for years. They live in Indiana. I don’t have any answers for her and feel so bad. The government has not been financially balanced or capable in any of its endeavors. Why did we give them our health to take care of? Why? They should have just taken care of the part where the insurers were dropping those with medical problems, and left the rest alone. A few laws changed and that was it. The whole insurance thing is a scam. You pay premiums so that if something happens, it is covered. The money is pooled for those catastrophes, not to line pockets of insurers. Reasonable profit – not get rich from others fear of sickness. So sad… This is all the government should have focused on. Not taking it over.
Dear Mr. Obama, I make less than $25,000 a year working 2 jobs. The company I was employed with full time at $12.00 per hour, with the option for plenty of over time, reduced my hours to 120 per month to avoid having to provide health insurance to me. My other job as a real estate agent fluctuates and I manage to get enough business to bring me up to about $25K a year. I have a house payment of $1050 per month. My air conditioner broke last month, and I now have a monthly payment of $108 for that. I also have a car payment, car insurance, electric / water bill, internet bill (needed to work my $12 an hour job), phone bill (needed for my real estate job), yearly HOA fee $250 (or they will put a lien on my house), plus the other fees and expenses of daily life. Please tell me how to squeeze another monthly $107 (that is a subsidized payment) into my budget. As my granddad used to say, ‘you can’t squeeze blood out of a rock’. Even if I could scratch out $107, the deducible is so high, I would still be bankrupted by any health issue that might come up. This is essentially a way to force me to give your crony insurance companies money that I will receive absolutely nothing back for. This is so crushing to those of us who have been decimated by the economy. I am so afraid I will be homeless after all of this. Wondering how many others are in the same boat.
In other words…. we are out of luck. I cannot afford healthcare in the Affordable Care Act, and do not qualify for any of the benefits you mention. Thanks for nothing.
It’s definitely the high deductible IN ADDITION TO THE MONTHLY PREMIUMS. Personally, I refuse to pay for something I can’t use. Who has $5000 to pay for a deductible ON TOP OF THE MONTHLY PREMIUMS??? ($150 a month is too high when you factor in a $5000 deductible)
You are right. Without cost sharing subsidies or an HSA $5,000 is nothing more than catastrophic coverage and basic preventive services. So if one gets in a catastrophic accident only paying $5,000 will be a lifesaver and of course getting to the doctor for a checkup and basics like birth control and such are a bonus. Aside from that not much good and is hard to stomach at a high premium.
You keep talking about the cost sharing subsidies. Remember the subsidies are just other citizen’s tax dollars and other citizen’s premium payments. All going to, like welfare, the low income and in many cases the not so low income. Call it what you want, welfare, on the dole, transfer of wealth the whole ACA was purposely designed to fail and have more and more people dependent on the government.
Unemployed and still am what then? and what about those who do work but can barely afford to live working from one paycheck to the next and barely I mean 0 dollars left over after paying rent and utilities.
This plan did nothing to actually reform skyrocketing health care costs. Just made sure to punish anyone who didn’t have insurance so Obama could make it look like some kind of utopian health care God. Bottom line: We shouldn’t be penalized for not having health care. I’m trying to pay rent, four credit cards, student loans and live in a city with a cost of living 38% above the national average while making $11/h 29.5 hrs/wk (it was 40hrs/wk before the aca kicked in so don’t tell me it didn’t lead to employers cutting hours. I couldn’t afford it then. I can’t afford it now. The only difference is now I’m being punished for being “affluently (aka working) poor.” Requiring someone to purchase health insurance is tantamount to making suicide illegal. It’s my life. I should be allowed to risk it and get sick and die if I want to. But then again I’m a woman we’ve never had much sway in what happens to our bodies have we moderator?
Good comment. The problem with health is that you getting sick puts a burden on other taxpayers as hospitals write off the crazy costs. At least with the ACA we all pay in and are accountable. Gotta remember that we were having a healthcare crisis as a country even before the ACA (it was in many ways simply a response to a problem we were ignoring).
The ACA does a lot in regards to improving equality for women in healthcare, so it’s not totally fair to take that jab in this instance. Still, I generally agree here. The current system is no Utopia be it healthcare, debt, or the cost of living. But the American dream is Utopian and together we can realize that.
You, sir or madam, are an enormous idiot; I am literally in tears over some of these stories, yet you don’t quite seem to understand even after every negative comment. Get it through your thick skull. This is a huge, enormous and literal ‘tax’ and burden on the American people, mainly middle class. Even for the poor, this ACA has just done a real number on people. If it were affordable for EVERYONE with a low deductible for everyone, you know maybe if it were an affordable $200 a month with $1000 deductible for an annual family income of $65000 per year, the American people would be rejoicing. That’s the way it should be. Affordable. With my current income, that amount described above, would be the only amount that would be affordable…..and reasonable.
The government should’ve went after the doctors who overcharge and the insurance companies that over charge. Not the American people.
I guess the only bright side to my situation is I’m not alone. I’m yet another hard working family man with an equally hard working spouse that can not afford health insurance. Our kids are covered through medicaid (thank god), and my wife has group insurance. My work doesn’t offer any and it would cost us over $400/mo to be added to my wife’s through her work. Hence why I’ve been paying penalty and doing without. So this year I make another effort to do the responsible thing and seek out insurance on healthcare.gov to only to be let down again. We have 4 children and make 50+k a year combined and I do not qualify for tax credits! Like other posters have said, it should take into account your debt/income ratio. The whole thing really pisses me off! The cheapest bronze plan just for myself is $250/mo and it doesn’t pay for crap!! We can’t afford that. With the $6000+ deductible and copays I won’t get one red cent of aid from this insurance all year! So let me get this straight, I pay over $3000/year in premiums plus out of pocket for all my medical expenses!? Hell no, give me the penalty! At least I won’t have to make my family suffer all year trying to scrape by for something that won’t benefit me anyway. This whole obamacare has me so angry. I would love to have insurance, I worry for my family constantly not having it. It’s wrong forcing us to take something we can’t afford or penalize us for it. Only benefits the poverty stricken and the rich. The rest of us in the middle are screwed. This system needs fixed & now!!
The affordable care act is such a fail. Instead of making insurance affordable it’s making my life more expensive. I don’t get sick and I don’t go to a doctor so why should I have to pay $200 a month for insurance. The marketplace is basing this on my income without consideration that I do have other bills I have to pay. I am a single mother. After I pay all my bills and buy groceries which I can barely afford I don’t even have $50 leftover most of the time and I’m damn sure not going to spend my last on insurance I don’t need. And on top of that I have to pay penalty during tax time because i don’t have insurance!!! This health care law is doing more harm than good to the very people this law is supposed to help.
I make $12,000.00 per year. I have three children and I am not eligible for medicaid. The marketplace shows my lowest cost bronze plan to cost $256.00 per month. I have followed this all the way to the last step and it shows no other cost reduction before confirming enrollment. How can this be? Can my kids eat at a hospital cafeteria when I cant afford to feed them? Or should I wait for malnutrition to set in so the health insurance can kick in and they can be treated at a hospital This is just sad. Not only can I not afford this I will be financially penalized by the government for not having it. I wont be able to pay that either so tell me, if this whole thing was to benefit disenfranchised Americans who otherwise would not have access to health insurance due to costs why can I not afford it?
I am empathetic to your situation. I too am struggling, we were once covered through welfare, but we lost that coverage. I was grateful to finally have both of us working, since in the economy it has been tough, layoffs are constant. I am currently working as a temp employee for almost two years in order to ensure a consistent check. Food prices are so high that I struggle to feed my family a healthy diet. We have been getting by medically since our lost of coverage by utilizing our local drugstore walk-in clinics. These have been a life saver since I can usually get a discount from the clinic on antibiotics or other meds. I walk out paying about 100 a visit, only 2 visits in 2015. Yet, with Obamacare I am required to pay a minimum of 385 a month for my family, or be penalized for not having coverage? What sense does this make? I should only be required to pay for what I use!
It doesn’t make things fair or easy, but we have to remember that health insurance is as much about protecting against the unforeseen as it is about getting value month-to-month. Everything you say is valid, but we can’t lose sight of the catastrophic nature of insurance and how it’s corresponding to a large healthcare issue related to costs industry wide.
funk obama and funk obamacare i cant work due to a genetic disease and im being denied disability. funk alabama gov robert bentley as well. a total pizza and a clutz.
This is all Alabama rejecting Medicaid. Obama and ObamaCare wanted to see you covered, Alabama decided that if you didn’t have an income this year you cost too much to cover. If that sounds like a harsh judgement go and Google “why didn’t Alabama expand Medicaid?”
Good news is, Alabama is considering expanding. So you may actually have a coverage option soon! http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2015/11/gov_bentley_on_expanding_medic.html
The country and the states can’t afford to pay for healthcare, medicaid, medicare period. Our country is 18 trillion in debt and has over 200 trillion in unfunded liabilities. The govt and every facet of the healthcare industry are living high on the hog while they are raping the citizens and destroying the country. We need healthcare cost reform. There is no need for drugs and healthcare to cost so much. It is a messed up cycle of hospitals, insurance companies, doctors, pharma, and liability lawyers. All making out gaming the public with the help of our elected officials. You know…….the ones who are supposed to be representing “we the people”!
I make eight hundred to eight fifty a month with rent being 47.00 a month gas and electric running 150.00 a month can’t afford to buy food or pay bus fare to get to work
Rent 475.00 pay 800.00 to 850.00 a month duke 150.00
Having a tax break next year does not make any cash for the monthly premium magically appear. Still can’t afford Obamacare 3rd year running. I have a struggling small business to run. I can pay my way in the world, but this forced paying for insurance is not only unconstitutional and unfair, it is un helpful. If you really want to help people get insurance you need to give it away at no cost, then you can take the premiums out of what I pay in taxes next year , not the other way around,
I can’t afford the lowest plan. Sorry. I’m all ready eating every other day so I can pay bills and feed the kids.
If the politicians, and Obama, actually gave a rat’s arse about us AT ALL, rather than forcing crap on us and raising the minimum wage they would cap health care and the costs of living (like giving a max price per square foot of living quarters so i don’t have to pay 300$ to live in a closet in Florida cause it’s all i can find that i can afford), but they’d rather just force more bills down our throats — “hey, i know you have some extra money so go ahead and spend it on this crap we barely put any thought into that you don’t want. Oh, lookie,you’ve got five bucks left! You’re doing well for yourself, go buy yourself an ice cream, kiddo!”
Don’t tell me not to blame the laws because THE LAWS ARE WRITTEN by corrupt money grubbing politicians of which 95% don’t care about us AT ALL and obamacare is the best example of that out there.
I can’t afford to have my employer take out insurance ftom my check and I can’t sfford obamacare. I am stuck.
I can’t afford any of the health care plans. I am a poor single father raising a young child. I joined the navy when I was younger so I would have the option of veteran healthcare for catastrophic events. My current health care plan is to keep a map to canada and a passport handy. I understand healthcare insurance should be somewhat equivalent to car insurance, but can’t afford the older model. How can I qualify for health care coverage for my child only?
Contact healthcare.gov and they can help walk you through options. You need to be in an income range that qualifies you for cost assistance on HealthCare.Gov. If your state expanded Medicaid and income is low, you can get that. Either way, if you child is young enough they can likely get CHIP free or low cost. HealthCare.Gov helps with all of this.
It also helps if you are non married with 5 or 6 kids then you get everything for free as usual. This is why we are paying so much because of irresponsible people having kids that they have never provided for and only live off of handouts and under the table cash and what cash they can get from their EBT cards and prescription pills that they get once a month paid for by our tax dollars.
Yes, those lucky low-income people with 5 or 6 kids, its like 1. Being low-income with many kids (and living in a state that offers benefits like Medicaid expansion) 2. White picket fence and a job you feel good about. 3. Being an astronaut. That was always my list of dreams in order of importance.
You know the great con is to get the middle-class angry at the lower-class to have everyones eyes turned away from the upper-class who is racking up all the money and assets right?
I’m 47u/o, I make just under 12000 a year. ( sad, I know ). The system offered a huge discount. My premiums a month would it would be 45 to $50 a month. but making less than $1,000 a month, that’s $50 a month is something I just can’t afford. I was told by Dee customer service rep, that if I couldn’t pay my premium each month I will be charged the two hundred and something dollars credit each month for what I can pay $50 for a month. Obsolete I would rather pay the penalty of 2 or $300 instead of to the $3,000. I don’t really know what to do, if anyone have any suggestions please feel free to let me know.
We are a family of three and we are expected to pay 385 a month in coverage, and that is the minimal, through the employer it is even more, about 50. My house note is almost 900 a month, car insurance, car loan, utilities, home insurance, and the price of food climbing……..we are drowning, and it is not even in debt. I was hoping that Obamacare would have reasonable pricing, but it is not much different from the employer, still requires our family to give 100 a week out of our paychecks after taxes…..my Question….HOW? This is simply not affordable.
It’s not very affordable. There is a name for it “family affordability glitch” depending on your household income you may have options to opt-out of the employer plan or get an exemption.
I am a college student age 22 and make $7,000.00 a year. My housing expenses for rent and utilities are $530.00 a month. I don’t qualify for a subsidy because my “income is too low” nor do I qualify for medicaid or chip because Florida rejected this option. My parents are not able to pay for my insurance due to the cost of living and my college tuition.
You are automatically exempt based on tax filing status (assuming you file as independent). Given your income you may want to look into assistance programs too. If you end up with more income consider switching to a healthcare.gov plan.
How would I find out about assistance programs outside of medicaid? I live in Seminole County, Florida.
I get paid $11 and my hours range between 36 & 40 every week. This year, to date, I’ve made $21,289.45, before $ is taken out:
Fed W/H: 1,312.90
FICA 1,319.98
Medicare 308.72
(to date)
The cheapest plan my work offers (just for myself, no other family members) would be $41 and some change a week.
That’s not including dental and just including myself. Add my husband and it doubles.
If I’m thinking of it correctly, we would only qualify if my work offers a plan that is less than $42 a week (which is does), correct? I’m not sure I’m doing the math correctly…
We can’t afford that but if we don’t get insurance we will have to pay the penalty. So are my options to either pay the tax of no insurance, or pay the $300+ a month we can’t afford for insurance?
I’m a student and the only income I get is when I’m doing internships during the summer (GI Bill rarely covers an engineering degree due to the length), so my income is less than $12,000 a year on top of the $18,000 a year in loans I take out to live off of. How am I supposed to afford a premium of $270 a month for the lowest tier insurance? I basically make negative $6,000 a year. Florida doesn’t offer me any options, but neither does the federal government. Seems like nobody is on the side of a white male veteran aged 32 in government.
Due to Obamacare, it appears I will have to choose between two type of coverages… Health Care or a roof… if deprived of Health Care I may die sometime down the line… if deprived of a roof I will die much sooner.
I had health insurance for 2015 through my job, but my husband’s job doesn’t offer it and it was WAY too expensive through the Marketplace (over $200/mo. for a horrible Catastrophic plan). We made about $54,000 combined in 2014. Subtract house payments, student loans, credit card debt, groceries, etc. and we aren’t left with much at all. We don’t have kids (who could afford them?!), we drive old cars and have minimum car insurance and cut costs wherever we can. I agree that this isn’t helping the lower middle class at all… especially those that are married (higher household income means higher premiums).
My question is: How much will our penalty be if I had insurance all year but he did not? Are we supposed to file separately as opposed to jointly so I don’t get penalized too?
There are plenty of 25-year-olds like us drowning in student loan debt making $10-15/hour that truly cannot afford any if the plans.
So sadly, the family is responsible for the families taxes. Health insurance mandate is a tax, so you will both be pinged for one person not having coverage. At that income, and with an HSA (which actually does make sense at your income) you should be in a place where you are paying less than you are now. So consider this for next year.
You can also look into exemptions. https://obamacarefacts.com/obamacare-exemptions-list/
In 2016, the Individual Shared Responsibility fee for not having insurance is $695 per adult and $347.50 per child (up to $2,085 for a family), or it’s 2.5% of your household income above the tax return filing threshold for your filing status – whichever is greater. You’ll pay 1/12 of the total fee for each full month in which a family member went without coverage or an exemption.
So you would likely owe $695 – about $1,100 (depending on household income after deductions).
All that being said, it helps the middle class in the same way having home insurance or car insurance does, in the event of an accident it’s good. Obviously when we add up all the costs of an average person it’s hard to see how much more of a load the average person can bare. Can’t disagree with that, despite the importance of health insurance and the attractiveness of subsidies.
Does that mean that our penalty would be the same regardless of whether one of us has insurance or neither of us does?
I make less than 10k annually. According to the marketplace the cheapest plans in my area start at $130 monthly. I didn’t qualify for an exemption. I can’t afford the monthly premiums so now I’m going to be fined $695? Good luck squeezing blood from a stone :/
Your state rejected ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion so you have no coverage options. Due to your income you are exempt from the requirement of filing taxes, thus paying taxes, thus owing the fee. https://obamacarefacts.com/federal-tax-filing-requirement-thresholds/
This being said, that 10k has to be an exact or over estimate for this to be true. Check the link. Assuming it’s true, there will be no Government squeezing anything from your stone… but had your state not rejected Medicaid the government would be giving you health insurance along with the other assistance you qualify for due to income.
Just saying.
I get that you’re frustrated, dealing with this negativity, but this is going to hurt so many people. They’re coming here, desperate for any hope and your remark “Well this is your state’s fault..”
Really? That’s the help you’re offering?
No that is all the help the state is offering. I’ve taken a big chunk out of my life to answer questions online and to propagate a site full of free, awesome, and useful information and provided a forum for people to ask questions and vent frustration.
The thing on my mind when I commented was apparently me venting my frustration too. Years of hearing people’s stories of being rejected Medicaid and knowing there isn’t any GREAT answers (outside of getting states to exapnd) wears on the soul. But anywhoo. Always happy to provide direction. These articles have bevy of information:
https://obamacarefacts.com/obamacares-medicaid-expansion/
https://obamacarefacts.com/medicaid-gap/
The trick is to get denied Medicaid coverage, then use the denial letter to get an exemption and catastrophic coverage from HealthCare.Gov. You can also look into ways to lower your income to meet state specific guidelines or to up your income to use the marketplace. You can also look in to local assistance and charities. And in an emergency, use a public emergency room.
Having followed this for some time, have you actually helped any one? Kudos for taking time out of your busy day but I’d say it’s a lost cause. There’s no answers here. Only dismal reality.
How they figure out what I am able to afford if no one ask me what my bills are.
It doesn’t make sense when I have to cut back any possible social events because my income will go away in bills
Of course I will get sick and depress if I can’t have a life .
I live in tips , and the 5.02 per hour so my monthly income isn’t the same every month , I been putting on hold to fix my 13 year old car because I can afford a car payment to get a new one, I live alone and I don’t have any subscription to anything because money is tight , I cut the gym of and considering cancelling the Internet , but I have to pay FPL , my phone , rent, gas , food, most of my clothes are from the thrift store.
I don’t go out a lot.
Did you know how rent went up and up it probably takes 2 weeks to pay for it.
And don’t tell me the percentage , I want to know how they did the numbers , where you base that percentage on?
Did you thought about people being able to have a social life or take a class of something or go get a hair cut .
You are right. Why do we consider internet, food, phone, rent, gas, clothes, the same as buying a designer jacket when it comes to income? To some extent the sales tax and the progressive tax system do account for this. Still, add in student debt and other costs and it really does feel like net income should be calculated after some allotted limit for essentials.
Made $22,000 this year and still cant afford health insurance. What do I do ? Im lucky if i break even at tax time
I dont feel i should be fined !
When you are in a position like this you should look into exemptions. You may feel that you can’t afford coverage, but at $22,000 the cost assistance subsidies could very well be cheaper than the fee. So you may want to reconsider this. People don’t like hearing it, but at your income funding an HSA can have a pretty powerful effect on your total year end net revenue due to the tax breaks.
https://obamacarefacts.com/obamacare-exemptions-list/
Great generic response.
I noticed that the cheapest plan is basically medicaid…. It offers exactly the same coverage…. So why would I pay for the something that a lot of people get for free!!!! I can’t afford any of the plans and it says I can’t qualify for any deductions…. I have four kids bills, food, clothes, rent, school fees, personal care items etc how do they expect middle to low income families to make it…. They don’t
With just over $30,000 income a car payment. mortgage and growing credit card debt who can afford healthcare? At $300 per month with $5000 or more deductible and still more copays for visits and meds I opted for a catastrophic plan. I am totally dissappointed and terrinmbly frustrated!!
I don’t understand how my father, married and in his 60’s still working in order to qualify for Social Security, making $500 a week has to pay $750 a month. That amount simply doesn’t seem affordable at all.
Yeah, at that income he is eligible for an exemption from having coverage. He should call HealthCare.Gov so he can understand his options. He should have Medicare soon, but if he doesn’t yet he should find out his assistance and exemption options at HealthCare.Gov.
Try making 2 hundred less and paying the same amount every month for rent and affording it then believe it or not your father is in far from the worse situation.
I need help with my health care . Not able to work and medicaid said i dont qualify.. I have no income and there is no doctors that will see me with out money..
This is unconstitutional
Not technically according to the Supreme Court, but the frustration is noted.
Your Bronze Plan requires a considerable amount of cash flow and only covers 60%. One would think that your insulting one’s intellect? Silver plan costs me 38% of my gross monthly income and Gold is 45%. Governor Rick Scott refused to accept Medicaid extension and also refused my Medicaid application even though I’m legally deaf and suffer from Stage IV Osteoarthritis in both knees. Constant pain and lots of prescription NSAID’s and pain killers. Please don’t insult me by saying it’s a cake walk to pay a $3800.00 deductible plus and additional $3,000.00 in deductibles and 30% of a $80,000 operation? That’s over $30,000 for affordable heath care.
Inform President Obama that his healthcare is dead. One would expect him to force that Medicaid expansion down those Governors throat or hold them liable for the well being and lives of their citizens. I’m 62 and going without healthcare effective 1/1/2016. Thanks to no tax credits, no response to my filed appeal with Healthcare.Gov and especially no thanks to Governors that put politics ahead of the well beings of their citizens.
I
Moderators better publish this. There is no profanity but I’m determined to put this on all social networks.
Bronze Plan has 6800.00 deductible that you have to pay over your monthly premium before doctor visits and prescriptions are covered. Look at what it covers medically …. practically nothing.
Obamacare is a sham. No tax credits, no medicaid in Florida. I guess I’ll go without Healthcare. He can penalize those Governors before he touches my tax return.
Bottom line… All insurance is nothing more than legalized extortion.
You feel for us? Wow, that’s helpful. Because of student loans and car payments, I CANNOT afford the cheapest plan available to me, even with partial assistance. My husband and I make about $45,000/year, combined, and yes, the cost of our plan only represents 8.5% of our total income, but after all our other expenses, the money just isn’t there. It just isn’t. This is horrible and I don’t know what what we are going to do. I voted for Obama and supported his attempts to reform the healthcare system, but this is much worse than what we had before. Much worse.
I make 16000/yr I CNT afford my insurance through my job 90/mo so how can I afford marketplace insurance for 140+/mo but I don’t qualify for help either because my job offers insurance!? This is a bunch of hokum I’m only 27 no kids, healthy, don’t smoke, and these premiums are treating me like I have a life threatening illness when I don’t even go to the doctor! Its cheaper to just have the damn fine when I file my taxes let’s see est. 1180/yr for insurance when I will never use it vs. 700 fine for not having insurance that comes out of my taxes! Ha I think I’ll just let them take my fine. Affordable insurance my ass! Another way for the government to get our money!
Check out this page for guidance: https://obamacarefacts.com/affordable-employer-sponsored-coverage/
Tell me why a full time college student who made less than 12,000 this year who is 30 years old was given quotes for ridiculous amounts. My lowest monthly payments would be 360$ with a 6000$ deductible or I could go low deductible with 750$ monthly payment and 1200$ deductible. Even with those options I would still have to pay copay and for all prescriptions and a percentage if I had surgery. I dare the government to give me a penalty because I may just change my major to law at that point.
Well back up the choo choo there. At $12,000 MAGI you would qualify for coverage that costs less than $20 a month with nearly all out-of-pocket costs covered. This is because you just barely qualify for tax credits and at near 100% FPL the assistance is crazy good. You would be able to choose Medicaid instead, but you are apparently in a state that didn’t expand Medicaid (so hundreds of thousands in your state making less than you have no coverage options).
You are also teetering on the tax filing threshold, meaning you are in a place where you are almost exempt due to filing status. https://obamacarefacts.com/federal-tax-filing-requirement-thresholds/
I think you would be surprised by the reality of the PPACA with a few solid hours of research on our site. That said, we are busy so check out the federal poverty level and make sure your MAGI income is going to be above the 100% threshold. Then apply to heatlhcare.gov.
I am unemployed do I have to pay rate for last year’s earnong s even though I have only unemployment coming? I cause there is no way, no savings to pull from, no exemptions, and a chronic condition that is very common for many people. Any suggestions. Am 61 years old? Any suggestiond
I’ve worked at having a small business (that payed the wages for more than a few families) for 30 plus years. And I had good, affordable blue cross insurance all that time for my family of four, and helped with employees as my business could afford… until the affordable health care act came into effect. I can’t afford to pay for mine and my spouses tax premiums, ($864 a month bronze) how the heck am I supposed to pay for others?Now, having employees for my business is not affordable. Nobody better try and tell me I’m wrong. I’ve been trying to figure out how to pay the damn tax, keep my home, and make ends meet with my current income. Can’t be done. And NO, I don’t qualify for medicare/medicaid or other subsidies… If I work less, get my income down by half & get a little closer to or below the poverty line, I can get some subsidies (you know what I mean) and live like a lot of others (no, not all). I do not see a solution to the current health care / bait an switch tax plan in the near future. To many people believe now that all the good stuff grows on trees, you don’t need to work, and somebody else will always be there to pay for you. Yea, I’m pretty much done caring. 17 million more insured? BULL. 17 million more enrolled in a not good for much tax called affordable health care act, & how many million middle income people like me getting shafted? If you happen to be one of the chosen that the tax has helped, good for you. Get sick and a lengthy hospital stay, see how that bronze plan with a $12,800 deductible works out. Looking back, my old blue cross $120 a week insurance premium that paid for actual health care looked pretty good.
Looks like I’ll be paying the fine for not paying the tax. I wish there was a better solution.
Thank You and best wishes to all in the future.
I have high debt and due to my ins premium going too high I went all of 2015 without med ins for just myself. I applied for med assistant thinking that because I have hypothyroidism I would get it and was denied. I have of now for 2016 and once again I can’t afford it. And now I have worry about the penalty for 2015. What am I suppose to do. This is not affordable. How can you say upu are helping us.
My Monthly take home pay is $2200.00 My Monthly bills are as follows.
Rent $1100.00
Electric $100.00
Gas $40.00
Car Payment $276.00
Car Ins $100.00
Fuel for Car $140.00
Groceries $400.00
Total $2156.00
this leaves $44.00 per month and the premium I was quoted for the required insurance is min $103.00 per month. How am i supposed to come up with the difference? I am a single mom I cant afford the insurance and still keep a roof over our heads food on the table and still get to work. It does not make sense to me. Please help.
You are right, even with tax credits families still struggle to afford costs. Luckily you aren’t paying off student loan debt, many are and this poses yet another non-tax deductible obstacle that is pushed by society. We support affordable healthcare and a better life for Americans, not leaving a hardworking single mother with $44 a month. That said, fixing it isn’t easy.
you’re not leaving a single mother with 44 a month. You’re leaving her with a 60 dollar deficit every month. It sounds like maybe the government wants her to borrow money from china as well.
But you didn’t offer her any advice or solution.only to say “fixing it isn’t easy” and leaving her knowing she will be paying a fine which is unaffordable for something she cant even afford. Still not sure how the Gov’t can force us to spend money??? i have read all of your replies to peoples questions and concerns and not once have you offered advice only excuses. Seems to be the M.O of the Obama regime. When do we get REAL answers?
Bias is strange. I mean really strange. In my mind all I do is offer advice, and I just checked my comments and actually found a ton of really good advice. Just know that this the intention of the website. Obama is out of office soon, we still all need health insurance. I know more then the average person and i’m here to help. Feel free to ask any specific questions and i’ll do my best to answer.
Lies lies lies!
I can’t afford this at all, even with the highest (ridiculous) deductible they want almost 400.00 a month. That’s my car payment right there. But If I was a welfare queen, popping out kids 24×7 and living off food stamps and WIC it’s free?
It’s as though the government is intentionally rewarding bad behavior and trying to make the lazy filth of our society grow and multiply. It seems as if the current status quo wants a country filled to the brim with lazy, uneducated, and easy to influence baby factories.
Producing more kids poorly raised by these parasites to continue the cycle of ignorance.
Did you know you get a $1000.00 tax credit PER CHILD each year? While hardworking people get the bill and the shaft!
This is nothing but a cash grab for the insurance companies and some nice kickbacks to all whom helped to push this into law. All they needed to do was expand Medicare for all and cover the costs by instituting sensible corporate taxes closing loopholes, inheritance tax, etc..
There are so many places to get the money other than bleeding the already broken middle class. Even so I would gladly pay a reasonable flat tax for Medicare for all, but Obamacare is nothing but a blatant scam.
spoken like a true trump trashional! KKK much?
Try being self employed and married. Wife couldn’t cover me because it would cripple us financially. I can’t cover me because I don’t qualify for the tax breaks as a married individual, filling separate taxes. Then make more than medicaid in my state. Yay, another year without insurance at all. Sigh. Some of us can’t afford anything but to just hide and hope we don’t get sick.
I work part time and made only $3,300 this year.. that’s an average of $170 every 2 weeks plus paying rent and eclectic bill not to mention groceries… I live in south Carolina and they don’t give single adults medicaid services… Obviously I can’t afford coverage and I’ll still get taxed for not being able to afford coverage? I’m taking care of my 16 year old sister she gets health insurance through my mothers disability benefits. I don’t understand why we are being taxed over something we can’t even afford to purchase. Yes it’s a necessity but if your barely making enough money to survive week to week how can the government expect someone to pay for medical insurance if ‘we’ don’t feel like it’s a necessity? That’s not fair!
I scrolled down and looked at some of the comments, similar to my fix w/the health care system. I also looked at the responses from FACT. Last year my premiums were doable at $132.00 a month. I got a raise in pay and the coverage changed to $230 for the BRONZE plan. I too am healthy and didn’t even see a doctor last year. I plan on seeing one this year 2x for a prescription refill on Ibuprofen, my only script. I have no desire to take the numerous tests suggested as a way for doctors to milk insurance which is why the medical field is so jackedup. Because of student loan debt and living expense of home maintenance, food and gasoline my take home pay is generally $200 a month. I have no emergency fund, no savings plan, no 401k and do not ever see myself retiring. I can’t afford healthcare and will be paying the $700 next year for not having coverage. I really hope the system helps others but it sure doesn’t help this 55 year old healthy non-smoking female.
I am a 55 yo single woman no kids I only make 8000 a year an d I live in Mississippi so I can’t get Medicaid and I can’t get an Obama subsidy I have paid taxes my entire life but things have gotten tough the past few years…what am I supposed to do? This country has turned into a joke…
An additional monthly expense of this magnitude is going to make people change the way we live. I once lived as a jazz musician; this is my dream, my passion, and music is what makes me greet each day with a great smile. I do not make enough as a musician to pay for any coverage, but that was fine with me. Until now. My father recently passed away from an accidental death, and now I cannot risk being a burden to my family if something were to happen to me. I have decided to accept a job as a accounting contractor, but do not have healthcare coverage. Even after trying to make more money, I cannot afford this coverage, not matter what I enter as my MAGI, even if I fib the numbers, I cannot afford it. I have pushed my passion and love into what is now a part time hobby. I still have a better situation than most people: few student loans ($66 mo) and a degree in jazz performance and in accounting. However, I cannot afford any plans. I’ve read through all comments here and it looks like the people writing for obamacarefacts.comare nice individuals but they are simply doing their jobs. There are no good responses to people left with zero options to a horrible plan. We are in the infancy of healthcare reform must simply deal until things become better.
Since my daughter will be18 on 01/31/2016, I’m not eligible for Medicaid anymore. My totally income between me and my child is $1300 and my bills take all that. Healthcare.got wants $256 a month with almost a $7000 deductible a year…How do I suppose to live?????
I’m sorry- I voted for Obamacare because I wanted health insurance for all. But then, when it comes time to enroll, and trust I’ve heard the 9.5% of income limit, I am profoundly dismayed when I realize that not only will the monthly bill be between $200-300 a month, BUT I also have to pay $4,000-6,000 before a single thing will be covered. Oh, yeah, Preventative care is supposed to be free. Good luck getting that expressed- I go in for a PAP, (preventative care) and I discuss past problems. Even though the doc didn’t do anything about it, I’m still sent a >$900 bill, and the insurance company claims it’s not preventative. But that’s not why I’m writing. I’m writing because of the audacity for anyone, let alone the government, to charge an exorbitant amount in the way of a fee, when the entire premise was that it would be affordable. That premise has not been met. I’m livid, just thinking that you expect me to pay, what is it…$695 because I can’t afford the insurance? Exactly how is that justified? So you expect me to work, oh…after taxes…about $70 hours because I’m too poor and billionaires are too rich for me to afford health insurance? Again, raging Progressive Liberal here, but…how dare you. I’m not yelling at you, but you’re the hapless target of an alarming anger growing inside me when I here that I might not get a single bleeping dollar back on my taxes because somebody decided they weren’t rich enough and I wasn’t poor enough?
Amen. Thank you for the honesty and not literally directing the anger at me (the guy who hits the approve comment button).
I think we can do better if we all agree people deserve access to healthcare, but people can’t afford these prices. There is room for fixes that address both these issues, while keeping the good parts of the PPACA in place.
I make $11 per hour, am 50 years old, and diabetic. Working full-time, I do not qualify for assistance that would make insurance affordable. The only option has been to keep the income low enough to qualify for Medicaid. Thank goodness that family members have been buying me food and paper products – saving a lot of money.
The only option I can see is to vote for a candidate that will repeal Obama Care and remove the mandate. Then free clinics can provide insurance. Most of my meds are generic and the drug manufacturers often provide insulint for free. “Affordable” is the biggest sham I’ve ever seen.
Received coverage for two months than cancelled because I didn’t make min for health coverage. What happens now
You should switch to a marketplace plan by visiting HealthCare.Gov.
I am so confused here… I went to healthcare.gov and put in my income (9700.00) per year and I have three kids. I am not married. Yes that says 9700 as in less then ten thousand a year! My monthly premium for a catastrophic plan is 296.00 per moth with a maximum out of pocket of 6850.00. How is this possible???!! I can not pay almost 1/2 my monthly salary in medical coverage that will only pay for something catastrophic! It states that I do not qualify for a premium tax credit. How so??!! Help! I can’t afford insurance and I can’t afford to be penalized. What do I do? Any help would be great!
If your state expanded Medicaid, then you have access to free or low cost coverage through Medicaid. If your state didn’t, you make too little to get cost assistance (why you are getting quoted full price).
You’ll need to project to make over 100% of the poverty level, apply to Medicaid, or go with the more expensive coverage.
The good news is, at that income you are also exempt from the fee (as you are below the federal tax filing threshold).
https://obamacarefacts.com/obamacare-exemptions-list/
https://obamacarefacts.com/obamacares-medicaid-expansion/
I can barely afford it, and now my tax return is being gouged … because I made a tiny bit more than I anticipated. The tax return I usually rely on has dwindled to nothing. I did what I was supposed to do and got Obamacare. I can even go to the doctor though, because my deductible is so high, I have no copay. And now this. It’s thievery.
I meant to type that I can’t even go to the doctor.
To the person who has all the answers on Obamacare:
Thank you for posting this vent it out site, even though it probably was never meant to be one, and I’m glad you have taken precious time out of your day to represent a ticking time bomb even if you must be reaping some benefits from it in order to want to keep it up and running, or maybe your just in pure amusement reading all of us middle working class people pour our hearts out in hope our plea’s may get noticed. ….. Yeah I know, who am I kidding.
Anyway Sir/Madam. I am too one of the millions of middle working class people who have been muted and wiped unaware of since this bill was passed, It was sold to the public to be a great benefit to the residents of the USA. Im sure there was somewhere in there that had it in tiny letters “excludes all classes of life except those who are living off the government already.”
So back to this middle class worker who is a single mom earning less that 35k or less per year, take home after all taxes and living in GA is about 22k or less per year. I have not seen a pay raise since 2011, yet everything around me is still going up .. well except fuel as its elections time … only good thing thats happened lately.
I got the so called Obamacare back in 2014 after coming out of a verbally abusive life with my childs father. I could not afford it in the early part of the year as I was supporting my child and myself alone with no help. I got turned down left right and center from the government as my income before taxes was over the poverty rate. Even though I was about to loose everything. I put my life in the hands of the Child support system to help, they dragged their feet for 4 months before I finally went and got help from a lawyer who was nice enough to give me a rate I could afford from cutting off my cable & internet and cutting whatever cost I could find. I then got sick from the stress and ended up in hospital without insurance. Walked away with a 5k bill for 1 night. 1 Tylenol pill I think was $60!!! Anyway, I finally got an order for support established (I could not recover the 5 months I struggled with alone so I was left in deep debt hole). Being scared of ending up in hospital again I decided to apply for Obamacare. I had to cut more corners to afford the premiums I was offered by skipping my lunches and sometimes even dinners for myself to save on the cost of food. At the end of the 2014 I had hope as I knew I would get a tax refund in the next couple of months to try and get my head above the water again.
Well guess what. I was penalized $600 for not having the insurance for the whole year, then also because my employer unexpectedly gave us a small end of year bonus (which was less than the penalty after taxes). So after paying $864 in premiums for 2014, the government still penalized me more than what it would have been to not have insurance.
Needless to say I did not have insurance for 2015 and I have filed for an exemption for 2015 and pray that I get it as if I dont get those 2014 medical bills paid my credit that Ive worked so hard to make decent is about to be ruined because of it. So thank you for backing up this plan as although it may work for some .. they missed the middle majority of us who are all hitting rock bottom because of it.
Thanks for venting. As the person in charge of hitting “approve” on the comments I get immediately associated with law. I get that.
As a person who understands the law and writes about it, I get accused at towing the political line… but only to the extent that my subconscious bias is acting without my knowledge.
I actually greatly empathize with those who are hurt by the law and spend most days trying to do my part to help. There is no amusement in knowing that my fellow working Americans are suffering and directing their anger in the wrong places as the country divides.
But I am glad that I could provide a forum for discussion.
I am a college student, I can only work my ASS off in the summer. My school doesn’t offer health insurance, and I CAN’T afford to pay 200 plus a month. I don’t qualify for ANY assistance, so now I have to pay over 300 this year and over 600 next year in penalties. Thanks ACA for kicking me while I’m down!!!!
My husband makes $70,000 gross we are a 1 family income with a family of 4 including me. Inc last year was $485 no dental and no vision which wasn’t to bad but they got rid of that plan and quotes is his year for a plan costing $878! That’s insane that’s after tax credit applied, and any other plan we look at are still $595 and dr visits still $50 and and a $6500 deductible per person. is still really expensive when you include all other monthly bills.
This is a serious rip off.
Tax me.
So my husband and I want health care and I did find pretty good monthly rates of around $170, but the deductible is 13,000. So that means that I will have to pay $170 per month plus try and spend 13,000 per year until I get covered? I don’t even think I will spend 13,000 in medical costs annually, and then when I look for a lower deductible the monthly price cost goes up to $300 and I know that there is NO way we would be able to afford that. What’s the deal, what if I don’t spend 13,000 annually, am I just wasting my money?
Yes, essentially if you don’t meet the deductible anything not covered for “free” or under the plans cost sharing is subject to the deductible. Deductible resets every year.
Just so it’s clear, I don’t think $13,000 is affordable. I’d only say it’s more affordable than $100,000 in a catastrophe.
That said, cost assistance is supposed to cap that deductible at lower incomes, so that is one plus.
I’m 56. My wife and and mine gross income is about 32000, and the total monthly insurance for me and my wife is $330 or the silver plan and $6000 deductible before seeing a doctor.
Otherwise, I have to pay 200/monthly for a bronze plan and ” $11000 ” deductible before seeing a doctor…Does it make any sense?
How could I afford it?Either way… it cuts me short, and what about the utility bills, and other expense?
If we don’t have an insurance, we have to pay extra $1000-2000 a year for the penalty for what we are not happy to get… i’d prefer to use this money to see doctor as needed or go to urgent care.
The insurance price goes almost half of my income. I have three kids. They all separately have the cheap insurance because they have no income. However, they need me to support for their colleges.
Last year, I bought an insurance for me, my wife and one of my daughter. The insurance for three of us was just 170/month for a silver plan. This year, I affair that we cannot afford neither the silver or bronze plan.
I’ve looked into enrolling in a plan. We used to have Medicaid before we moved to another state. How can someone enroll in a plan if they make $0? The cheapest plan is $366…. Sure. I’ll pay that with my $0 cause I’m a full time mom and student. :/
Obama is just the puppet. Obamacare won’t leave once he’s out of office, that is if WW3 doesn’t happen and he stays in office because you can’t legally impeach a president during an active war but once Obama is gone Hilary will take the seat and FYI if you peeps didn’t already know Hilary wrote the the Obamacare bill practically and once the coward is out of office then it will be “Cliintoncare”. So keep that in mind when you go to vote, also Trump is a horrible choice. He will run this country like a business and America has been doing that for quite some while now and look hows its helping us. I agree by one commentator about going to religion or just simply God and religious/christian health insurances. Most of them are not half bad and maybe they will be able to help you but I don’t know form first hand experience but I plan to check it out. Best of luck to everyone here whose having it hard. What we lack in receiving here on earth in fairness, justness and compassion, we will get after life when we meet our creator. Peace.
If we move out of our house and move into a small apartment maybe we could afford insurance, but then we still don’t have $5,000 for our deductible on a 6 month policy.
I’ve read many of the comments on this thread and have done my own large share of research regarding the so-called Affordable Health Care Act and what I’m seeing here is that the administrators of this site are choosing to blame the petty disparities between the political party system for the atrocious results this Health Care Act is having on the average American.
So instead of withholding/abolishing this healthcare act and leaving things the way they are so people are paying out of pocket what they can afford for their specific health care needs, the better option was to pursue this act knowing full well that the GOP at the state level would block specific aspects resulting in the abomination with which we’re all currently contending?
You can muddy the details as much as you want with pedantic reasoning and you can blame the two party system all day long, but the fact is there is ZERO justification for mandating a penalty fee for Americans who choose to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps year after year.
I would be remiss if I didn’t share my own personal experience: I am your average healthy American male borderline millennial (pushing 30) and up until now I haven’t had to pay for more than a tetanus shot for stepping on a rusty nail one time in my mid twenties. Now suddenly I’m charged more than half a grand every tax season because I have a fundamental disagreement with what is essentially a fascist act? This is the reality that many of my peers and many more who are not my peers have to face and you can argue the many ridiculously complicated details of the so-called larger battle but there’s a simple fact emerging from all of that BS: we are giving more money to the government as a result of this plan against our will.
The bottom line year is that as long as the government is demanding nearly $700 or more per year as a penalty fee for refusing to sign up for something, then we are living in a fascist state.
And I know the response to these concerns is that the Republicans in the Senate or at the state level corrupted the Act into the current state of affairs, but the even simpler response to that is this: DISCONTINUE THIS ACT AND RETURN THINGS TO HOW THEY WERE. It’s a very simple solution; it requires even less work than committing to executing an affordable healthcare act.
Why would an administration continue to execute and enforce an act that has so clearly been corrupted against its original intentions?
Up until this point my comment has been as objective in perspective as I could possibly manage, but here is the most subjective thing I will say about the current issue: of course the government would continue to back a completely corrupted version of its initial act if it meant making another $700+ per citizen every year.
This is actually worse than Nazi Germany
Thanks for the well thought out comment. I don’t think it is fair to blame “everything wrong” with the ACA on a party. I think the short-falls are largely a consequence of how dealing making works, but you are right that we can put the blame on a party.
I am salary so my pay does not change. I will make $32,000 this year before taxes. The lowest plan is $192.94 in order to be exempt the fee would need to be $213.33, I’m $20.93 away. Not to mention the deductible is over $6,000 I don’t have enough to pay the monthly cost yet alone now have the money to actually visit the doctor. Before the affordable health care act I could visit a doctor for $40 when needed. If I sign up I will not be able to even afford to visit the doctor yet alone make all my bills. My take home after taxes is $982.80 Let’s do the math – I live in Tampa, my (small) 500 sq ft apartment is $780 a month in rent, my car payment is $435 a month, Car insurance is $170, phone is $80, Electric is $75, Gas is $80 just to go back and forth to work $120 if I go anywhere on weekends, I live on pasta, eggs and cheese mainly so my monthly food is about $200 – that leaves me about $145 left over…and additional things come up like oil changes, clothes, birthday’s, and $145 still is not enough for the $196 bill!!!! Maybe once my car is paid things will get better, but I was hoping that once it was paid off I’d have the extra money for saving for a house and to start a retirement savings – not pay for health ins that wont allow me the ability to afford to actually go to the doctors. I’m 29 years old and I’m now afraid I’ll never be able to get ahead. The American Dream has died and now I wonder if it’s worth even trying to survive.
by the way….my government assistance amount was $0. Affordable is a joke! Affordable is an option, maybe you should make this a tax if you truly want everyone to participate, and then you would realize that the average income would need to jump up a ton!
Single mom here, daughter in college (must be insured to attend) I became unemployed company closed. Paid six months of premiums of Obsmacare. Luckily found new job after three months I called to cancel as now I’m being offered insurance with my new company, only to find out that she was never insured due to a glitch! BCBS cut me check for 6 months of premiums. Now I get a bill for her not having insurance” HUGE tax mess! I will not use this farce again.
I make minimum wage my total bills is barely enough to make ends meet. The cheapest I found on the market place was a $238 month with almost $7000 deductible I can’t afford that!!!!! So I guess I won’t have healthcare insurance this is ridiculous !!! It’s cheaper to pay my doctor out of pocket!!! But they want to penalize you for not being able to afford health insurance
I’m a college student and only work like 2 months out, of the year (and only on weekends) and for as low as the cost of insurance can be, I cannot afford it on a monthly basis. What would the IRS do to me?
The fee for not having coverage is a per-month fee based on income. It can be withheld from tax returns, but you can’t be put in jail or get liens on your property or anything for not paying. You can check out more information here: https://obamacarefacts.com/obamacare-mandate-exemption-penalty/
This isn’t answer to the question at hand.. The question is what do you do if you cannot afford a monthly premium and the outrageous deductibles? People cannot qualify for the assistance programs which makes sense because they are qualifying for a Qualified Health Plan due to high income. The deductibles make it like there is no insurance at all, it cost $4500 to pay upfront and then $218 a month? The cheapest deductible that can be qualified is $3500 with a $330 premium. They need to make it illegal for insurance companies to be able to charge clients more than 5% of their yearly income. How are people suppose to afford the affordable care act? What is the point of paying 300 month on an insurance plan that will never be used since the deductible is so high..
Good comments. So in simple terms: If you can’t afford then you need to take deductions, understand where the subsidy level lines are, apply for Medicaid (and get a rejection letter), comb over the exemption options, etc. If you have employer coverage, then you need to look into the “affordable employer insurance” and “family glitch” related info. The more nuanced your situation, the harder it is. For most people there is a better option, but it requires some high-level tax form acrobatics and insurance shopping.
For someone who is so for the ACA do you think that is ok that hard working americans have to jump through hoops or acquire some crazy shopping skills in order to be able to just barely afford healthcare? do you supporters really believe that is ok? and if not wtf is the supporters and the people in high places in government doing about it?twiddling their thumbs maybe? or enjoying a nice vacation on our hard earned tax money? I think the last statement is probably more accurate…Dont be surprised if this continues to see crime and isis supporters climb drastically…this bs right here is what pushes us americans backs against the walls and if we have nobody looking out for us to alleviate that situation eventually u think these ppl are gonna continue to stay loyal? particularly if u get thrown in jail u can get better healthcare then if your a law abiding tax paying citizen.
I had Market place coverage at $25/mo with my tax credit, then i lost my job at the time it came to re-enroll. So now instead off the plan that actually provided health care at a price i could afford even without a job, now all market place has for me is a catastrophic plan the covers nothing i pay for almost everything out of pocket, and that plan only cost me 270/mo. When i ask them how that is affordable, and how does it make sence that if i am making less i have to pay more for less coverage, im told because i wont be paying taxes at my current income level then i dont qualify for a credit. I have news for them at the previous income leveli wouldnt have been paying taxes either, and would have gotten a refund. Im still lost as to what to do. This makes no sence to me at all. Affordable health care my a*#.
You may be projecting too little income for cost assistance or your state didn’t’ expand Medicaid. If neither is true, then why go catastrophic? Major medical with tax credits is a much better option. You called HealthCare.Gov right?
Obamacare forces women to buy maternity care. I am in my 50’s and will never have a child. My premium is so high in part because the law forces me to buy maternity care which I will never use! I cannot afford Obamacare. I cannot afford the penalty and I don’t qualify for any subsidies. By the time I pay my mortgage, income taxes, and real estate taxes, utilities, food, and transportation, I have no money left for insurance. I am single. I will never have kids. Why am I forced to feed the coffers of the insurance companies and buy things I will never use!! If maternity care was removed from the healthcare insurance package, the monthly premium would significantly decline. I have to wait another 10 years, when I am 65 and eligible for Medicare, to afford medical insurance. I will be paying 10 years of penalties.
We are all just cost sharing all costs in regards to essential coverage. We all pay for maternity, we were all babies at one point, and we all have mothers. The reasoning looks more like that than looking inward at what we need now in our lives. Your point is taken though, people are asked to pay more than they can afford in some cases and then it’s hard to look at the cost sharing in a good light. Sharing implies having more than enough, so being asked to share when you don’t have enough isn’t good. Think lots of people sympathize with the costs, but it’s hard to argue against coming together to ensure maternity coverage for women.
My employer decided to NOT keep helath insurance. They are a small company so they do not have to . I am in Ohio. I am 37 years old and female no kids. Married but we file taxes separately. I do not qualify for subsidies. Until 3 months agao I was only making 13.75 an hour. Now I make 16.00 an hour. The cheapest plan available is $240.00 a month from Caresource ona bronze plan . It has no out of network coverage and a $7000 deductible. I can’t afford it . The MAGI you talk about makes no since as there is nothing to adjust. I have bills and trying to survive. I had to decide if I want health care or a roof over my head. I drive an old vehicle too. This crap is not affordable and before too long everyone is going to be bankrupt. I played with the numbers and it didn’t matter if I made 31,000 a year or 270,000 my premium would be the same. What a joke. I would be better off to file Bankruptcy ,quit my job and sit on my ass. A flag should be raised that no one can afford this joke of insurance. Who can pay a $7000 deductible? It adds up to about $10,000 a year. The hospitals wont let you pay what you can on bills they tell you what you will pay . So if you did use it you will be so stressed out on how to pay for that too so why does it matter if you have healthcare or not.America is screwed
What next? So, I have many health issues, and live in a state that doesn’t expand medicare, and the lowest available is $800 more than I have every month? How do we push for expanded Medicaid? I was denied Disability.
Find out if your state expanded Medicaid (or is working on it). If not, find out who your Governor is and let them know you want Medicaid expanded.
If you know your state is holding back expansion help educate others on what this means. A number of states have created their own plans due to people demanding Medicaid, it can happen in your state too.
https://obamacarefacts.com/obamacares-medicaid-expansion/
i made 16 thousand and some odd change last year, my income tax return was $900 and i was charged $400 bucks out of it for not having healthcare! the lowest plan available is $177 dollars a month! i cant afford that so i will be paying fines every tax season from now until obamacare is dismantled. thank you Obama….ps i live in Tennessee so i dont qualify for deductions
Zero income = absolutely no money for any insurance. Not even the $9 a month catastrophic plan. If I can not even afford this. Will the government really punish me with a fine at the end of the year?
No. The government tried to give you free insurance and your state rejected it because… You know whenever I point out the WHY it sounds rather prejudice on my behalf. How do you explain to someone that their state doesn’t care about them? Next time your friends say they are voting for the GOP, think about what this means to you personally and maybe say something.
i CANNOT STAND THIS.. wE CANNOT AFFORD THIS. we cannot AFFORD A $460.OO MONTHLY PREMIUM FOR JUST MYSELF. tHIS IS RIDICULOUS. wE HAVE GONE THROUGH THIS WHOLE magi THING. And why should I be forced into the lowest possible Premium (which is still to expensive) to get the most unusable insurance. Cant wait for this clown to be out of office.
I am not able to afford healthcare. I am a full-time student seeking a degree. I was wondering what options do I have. I can’t afford the premiums at all and how can I get assistance?
I have zero income and I’m disabled in a year long battle with our broken social security system to get disability. I have a disease that is attacking my bones and central nervous system. I was denied medicaid despite losing the ability to walk. How in the world am I supposed to afford a 300 dollar a month premium? I wouldn’t have been able to afford that even when I was working 50 hours a week. My wife and I have lost everything over the last year because of the SSA and our government’s inability to take care of it’s disabled citizens. Our government is literally killing the people this was supposed to help.
No matter how you say it Obamacare sucks!!! Its called the affordable health care act I say affordable for whom!!!??? Most people, myself included, can’t get ins thru work don’t qualify for access and even with the subsidiary still can’t afford the ins offered on healthcare.gov!!!! I work full time, pay my taxes so others can get help meanwhile I’m left out in the cold!!! Then to top it off if I don’t have ins you’re gonna fine me and take even more of MY hard earned money out of my tax return. Well I call bullshit!!!!! If your gonna fine me and take my money then give me proper ins for the cost of what your stealing from me!!! Quit giving away my tax dollars to cover those who don’t work or are here illegally!!! If I’m working and paying my taxes that fund access or medicade or whatever state program is offered then I should be aloud to use such programs no matter my income!!!! I’m paying for it!!!!! But NO our government gives away what I pay for to those who don’t pay for crap!!!! A screwed up back words situation if you ask me!!!!
In the many passages below I have read mention of gold or premium plans being the only way to obtain coverage anywhere near reasonable in premiums, deductibles and co-pays. Nowhere, as far as I read, was the “Cadillac Tax” mentioned. If I make too much, don’t qualify for assistance and can only go into further debt to afford this coverage, I ask you, how does it benefit me to purchase these plans, that according to you, are the only way to benefit from this charade.
Married couple in IL having first baby paying $360 for just mom, making 47k joint currently.
P.S. Also under the ACA, if you apply on, or after, the first of the month your coverage will not begin until the next month. The reason given for this is that it can take up to three weeks for your information to be received by the insurance company. In our case, our insurance company had it within three days and was happy to have our effective date reflect the initial date of application, even though at no cost to Healthcare.gov, they refused to have our effective date reflect our initial application. We were initially denied because of applying outside the open enrollment period as well as inquiring about assistance. Medicaid must deny you before you can be approved for unassisted coverage. After reapplying without assistance we were informed that being pregnant is not a qualifier, only having a baby is. With prenatal care being required per the legislation, I cannot fathom how becoming pregnant is not a qualifier. In the end we were able to obtain coverage because of a wonderful employee at Healthcare.gov informed me that since my employer provided healthcare wasn’t adequate to our needs we could obtain coverage on the marketplace outside the enrollment period. I am in appeals to have the effective date remanded to the first application. As I see it by being given coverage at all, Healthcare.gov is in agreement that they were incorrect in their initial assessments. Their latest correspondence states that since we have re-applied for 2016 there is no way to change an effective date for a previous year, eg. 2015. If you have made it this far in this post I congratulate you as you have my patience and insatiable desire to make this an act that is not only affordable, but truly care as well. Hopefully enough of us can come together to make sure that we have the respect, care and responsible representatives that we are blessed to be constitutionally endowed with. Speak up and often, this is a government of the people by the people, let us keep it that way.
Cadillac Tax doesn’t kick in until 2018 (which is why it probably didn’t get mentioned much). At the right income level a Silver plan (and sometimes with an HSA) is what I would argue to be the “best plan”. But yeah, I think most people’s idea of insurance is what Gold and Platinum plans are (good coverage and low cost sharing).
They say I make too much money to get assistance, but I don’t even make enough money to pay my monthly bills on time. And that’s without insurance. What am I supposed to do then?? Pay the fee and not get covered? I have a kid that needs insurance and I can’t even afford that. This is so frustrating. And they wonder how people can’t get ahead?
Double check your application. It’s based on income and family size and it applies to a fairly generous portion of Americans. You can also not qualify for credits by making too little. This page explains it well: https://obamacarefacts.com/federal-poverty-level/
Yet another lower mid-class worker who “makes too much money” yet somehow cannot afford even the lowest price plans that would then require you to cover everything out of pocket in addition to $300 a month. Well, i could afford it, if I chose to skip meals or ramen every meal… but what would that do to my health.
I will continue to roll the dice and pray that I don’t get sick, and pray that somehow the so called “leaders” in this country with their free health care who aren’t subjected to this highway robbery have enough coverage to get their head removed from their posterior.
I’m cancelling my insurance, we pay $1052.00 a month for me, my wife and 2 yr old daughter! WTF….. GOING BANKRUPT YO HAVE HEALTH INSURANCE. … That’s the American Way!
$1,000 plus a month for 4 people is about $250 each. That is a lot to pay per-member for a family plan. Assuming this is without assistance, but still, that is asking too much unless we are talking a high-end plan.
Is this through the employer? Are you getting cost assistance? Remember you can still shop around until the end of open enrollment.
fact is that my family of 5 makes $17000 a year and the lowest premium on healthcare.gov was $570 a month for one adult! that’s more than my mortgage! affordable my a$$!
That is below the poverty line. It is possible that what is happening is you aren’t qualify for help because your state rejected Medicaid.
https://obamacarefacts.com/federal-poverty-level/
https://obamacarefacts.com/obamacares-medicaid-expansion/
so my family is just screwed then! this is such a great country we live in.. SMH
17 Million people now have insurance that did not previously (if thats not just a Fox News headline and is in fact correct) because people like me who eat right, exercise, and have ambition (not sitting on the couch all day eating deep fried Oreos and watching Orange County Housewives and the Kardashians) have had their premiums more than triple for LESS coverage. ($115 before OBLAMACARE, $395 with OBLAMACARE). Penalize the people that will live longer and be healthier due to there habits and reward the people keeping fast food companies thriving. This is not hard to figure out… More handouts for the fat and lazy!! What a legacy Barack …
Well apparently I don’t make ENOUGH to qualify for assistance! What kind of BS is that? I don’t make ENOUGH?! Im a full time student working part time and picking up hours when I can, how can I not make enough to qualify for assistance? Penalizing people by fining them for not having healthcare is unconstitutional. It should be our RIGHT to not want to pay for healthcare especially if we cant afford it. You say there are ‘affordable’ options out there but you have to jump through hoops to be able to get it.
I need insurance for numerous reasons, yet can’t afford any of it! I have called numerous places and checked healthcare.Gov after putting in all of my information it says I will pay $270 a month. I am 24, female, married, stay at home mom of our 4 year old daughter. My husband has insurance through his work and my daughter has a medical card. When my husband went to put me on his insurance it was going to be an extra $500 a month. We can barely afford his truck payment which is the only vehicle he has to get to work. And now he’s going to be penalized for something he can’t help. This is extremely messed up. Good hard working people are getting screwed thanks to this awesome new health care plan!
I am not to sign up for this Obamacare thing. If i get my tax money taken away and this country feels good about it go ahead, that’s what they are doing anyways just taking our money. I got my money taken out last year and for sure this year. And if this Obamacare continues they can take my house and cars or what ever they want maybe then I’ll qualify for free or lower premiums when I’m pushing a cart down the streets. You guys are the voice of this country and if you sign up your only giving this law more power, I decided not to sign up and weaken the system. And yes I have check the programs out and even after cost and full evaluation of what I Pay still $250.00 a month. No thanks.
This is your choice as an American.
We have Obama care but can’t afford the dental. I have lost my crown and my gums are open for infection. Dentists won’t touch me without insurance or money up front. Have 5 children with disabilities. I can’t work. Husband just lost job. Kids are on medicaid but we aren’t. HELP??
If you are in a state that expanded Medicaid then you should be able to reapply for Medicaid. Sometimes local assistance programs will include free dental from dentistry students. This could be an option.
Can’t afford insurance most of my pay goes for rent and light.
I too can’t afford a plan. I’m divorced( not my choice) self employed, three boys shared custody, and buried in credit cards from divorce. Mortgage , car payment, insurance, utilities, food I’m working my ass off trying to get out of dept . I barely make it now. I can’t add 420$ to my bills. And I don’t get a lot of work in summer( musician) to boot.
I give up . If I stop paying my credit cards I can put it toward health insurance. I’m really upset thinking about it. My wife cheats on me screws me over now obamacare. It’s all income based yet I have friends benefit and they have nice homes and money in the bank and cheap insurance, but it doesn’t look at my bills. It greatly hurts the lower middle class.
I don’t think it’s fair that I couldn’t afford insurance for several months than got insurance and they took 8.9 percent of my pay each week that I can’t afford and going to be penalized for the months that I didn’t have insurance
I’m a single dad, working all the time. I think everyone WANTS Insurance,, but can not afford anymore expenses. I would not be surprised the persons answering our questions gets medical benefits as a government worker, and telling us how to spend our money? lol
Private citizen who runs a small firm actually. No relation to the government at all, aside when I pay my taxes and drive on the roads. I’m not telling you how to spend your money. I’m helping people to take advantage of the benefits of the ACA.
My focus is always on what is best for the country and the people. I think having access to health care is right up there. I dislike the underlying costs, but I also (elsewhere on the site) help come up with solutions for what can be done about that too. Anyway, respect for being a single dad.
I am unemployed and I barely can pay bills,I fill that it is hard to pay for something you can`t afford and get punished at the end of the year.
If you don’t have an income you get free coverage under Medicaid (if your state expanded Medicaid), otherwise you at least won’t owe the fee ( you only owe it if you make over the filing limit).
This is crap!!! We can’t afford the premiums for health care @ 25000.00 a year we have maybe 100.00 left aweek medicine has sky rocket pills I bought before this health care , was under 100. a month now it is over 400.00 a month making it a law is extortion !!!!! premiums have gone up this is not affordable HEALTH CARE
Wow! Big increase! Do you mean $2,500, plus more for pills? Rising cost of healthcare is a big problem for sure.
This is not healthcare…this is Insurance…there is a big difference! Insurance does not exist for your sake, it is there to protect the hospitals so that they get paid if you cannot afford to pay them. This is Obama working for special interest groups…the insurance companies!
Well that is true and smart to say… but we live in American in 2016, so in this reality we need insurance to get healthcare. I’m all for us carrying Bernie and a single payer bill to congress and demanding change, outside of this we have to work with what we have.
It’s so crazy how Obamacare works! This is so unjust!!! I make almost 23k a year. I honestly cannot afford this health care reform. I’m over qualified for Medicaid/Gov. Assistance and I’m under qualified to afford this Health Care Act. I am a college student. Full time last semester was too expensive for me so I have now moved to part time, 5k a year. I rent my own apartment, nearly 9k a year. I have a car note and full coverage auto insurance due to it being financed, 6k a year (Not including car maintenance and vehicle registration.) Leaving me with almost 3k a year…. I have monthly spendings such as groceries, utilities, cell phone, gas, clothing, vehicle maintenance, personal spending (laundry, basic needs, buying house items, internet/WiFi, entertainment, pet…) etc. I qualified for a $12 tax credit, that $144 for a whole year…. It really is not helpful and would not make a difference to me, considering I will still be paying $100+ for the lowest premium (Molina Healthcare) which covers hardly anything. I rarely have doctor visits as it is. It would be more convenient for me to just pay out of pocket every doctor visit. I honestly can not afford this mandatory healthcare BUT if I dont have it, I will be charged the penalty of $700! What a time to be alive!!!!! Everyone’s mandatory monthly/yearly spendings should definitely be included to decide what plans are “affordable” to an individual….. It’s sad this is between my life and death and no one seems to care about it.
At $23,000 you get pretty generous tax credits (remember you want to project MAGI) that is income after some deductions. https://obamacarefacts.com/modified-adjusted-gross-income-magi/
The rest of it is, as you say, expensive. You aren’t alone in struggling with that part.
How is a person supposed to estimate his income if he is employed temporarily and gets paid on an hourly basis. For example he gets paid x amount of $ for the first 40 hours and X amount for overtime, which fluctuates, however the position may end anytime between 4-6 months from now and there is no guarantee if he will find a job right away. How is he supposed to estimate when there is no certainty? What happens if he underestimates and ends up owing or pays huge premiums for months if he overestimates. Your calculations are confusing.
I agree, the math part of the ACA is confusing. It’s a lot to ask. What you do is add up your projected earnings roughly (MAGI) and then estimate your income for marketplace tax credits (MAGI compared to FPL). Then you adjust at the end of the year on the 8962 form. For people who want to be more laser pointed, they simply need to get out the calculator and crunch the numbers.
A high deductible means that when a person actually needs the healthcare, they just cannot afford it. So we waste all of our money paying the insurance and when we need it most, we have no money. In the last 3 years I have paid $1500 in healthcare costs (preventative and illness related). I have paid out of pocket, on an as needed basis. Under Obama’s Forced Insurance Plan I would have paid out $10,800 to an insurance company in those 3 years…and would not have been able to afford the deductible when I hurt my ankle. I would also have to move into a cheaper apartment, most likely in an unsafe/undesirable neighborhood. I would have better healthcare if I were on welfare, but for a working middle class citizen, the rates are just high enough to force me into a significantly lower standard of living.
Living on my own single, 23, no dependents, make about 20,000 working full time. I would normally still be under my mom’s health care, but she quit her job last year. I was never concerned about the imposed health care until then, I figured by the time I was 26, we’d have a new president, maybe something would change.
Anyway. I’m healthy. Only time I’ve been to the hospital since my age became double digits was 2014 when I got kicked in the ribs by a horse at work (different job now..)
It makes me feel pretty bad that I don’t smoke, don’t drink or do any drugs at all, eat healthy and take care of myself, work full time (want to go to school..), that when I heard all these other people my age saying insurance was SO CHEAP for them $30-$40 a month “You’ll have no problems!” I figured insurance wouldn’t be a big deal. Not as bad as some, but I’m trying to save to go to college, trying to save for a down payment on a house someday, and the minimum catastrophic insurance I can get is $170 a month, because “Alabama didn’t expand to medicaid” or whatever.
Fortunately, when I tried to get my estimate it said I was exempt from paying the fine.
HOWEVER: I WOULD LIKE TO ADDRESS EVERYONE WHO IS FACED WITH PAYING THE PENALTY FOR NOT HAVING HEALTH INSURANCE.
Everyone has been freaking out on me, saying you HAVE to get health insurance or they will fine you $500-$700+++ whatever. There is an article by Forbes that spells it out pretty clearly.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2015/02/26/opting-out-of-the-obamacare-tax/
You can opt out.
“To recap then, by law, you have to pay the penalty. But if you don’t, you won’t go to jail, you won’t be liened and you won’t be levied for collection.
Is there anything that could happen to you if you choose not to pay? With no jail, no liens and no levies, it doesn’t leave the IRS a lot of room to work when it comes to collections. Congress actually managed to create, as I wrote in 2012 and in in 2013, an incredibly complex and burdensome law without any teeth.
Well, maybe some teeth. Baby teeth. The IRS might seize any part or all of your refund in order to satisfy your obligation. Might. IRS hasn’t come right out and said that it absolutely will offset your refund if you owe a penalty for failure to pay. However, in the Final Regulations issued on this matter, IRS noted that “[n]othing in this section prohibits the Secretary from offsetting any liability for the shared responsibility payment against any overpayment due the taxpayer, in accordance with section 6402(a) and its corresponding regulations.” That’s sufficiently passive aggressive, right? You’re on notice that the IRS doesn’t think that it’s barred from taking your refund. They’re not saying they will (for certain) but they’re not saying they won’t either.
So is there anything you can expect for sure? You can definitely expect a lot of letter writing and virtual shaking of the government’s fist at you. Maybe even some blustering, for good measure.
But real consequences? Other than that potential refund seizure and a guilty conscience, there’s nothing to keep taxpayers from opting out of paying. Will they? We’ll have to wait and see.”
What it sounds like to me is that the worst that can happen is that they will MIGHT take the money out of your refund, money a lot of people have learned to live without already.
Good luck everyone. I’ll definitely be using this knowledge in the future if it comes to that.
You qualify for Marketplace tax credits, not Medicaid. You shouldn’t even be looking at catastrophic coverage. Your friends are right, the Forbes article is some pretty awful advice despite bits of truth she is spinning.
I’d strongly suggest getting that $30 coverage (which is what you would get if you went to healthcare.gov and let them know your projected income was $20,000).
I have no job, no way to even go on a job interview and Im expected to pay $440 a month ?? I guess that means people like myself are just going to die because we can’t go to a doctor or dentist when we need to… Karma has a way of coming back around…
Tell that to the Republicans who blocked Medicaid in your state. You should be getting free coverage while you get back on your feet, but the GOP in your state rejected expanding Medicaid. In all around 5 million Americans are in your same shoes. To put that in perspective there are 320 million Americans in the US.
https://obamacarefacts.com/obamacares-medicaid-expansion/
My recurring monthly expenses (rent, power, water, car insurance, ect) are 1300. I take home 1700. That leaves me with 400 for food, fuel, and unexpected expenses. My lowest obamacare bronze quote is 421. What do you expect me to do? Go stand in a food line for the rest of my life? For anyone in the 20 to 30 thousand $ bracket, this program is unattainable. I’ll pay the $650 fine and hope nothing happens to me.
I am 25 years old and a full-time nursing student in Texas. I will be covered by a parent’s insurance until my birthday in July.
Because Texas declined funding for the gap between Medicaid/Medicare and ACA, I will be left in a position in which I am unable to afford insurance. Nor can I afford the fee for not being able to pay for ACA insurance.
My program requires that I have insurance, yet my school doesn’t offer student health coverage. As far as I can tell, the ACA makes no provisions for people in my position, or even those worse off. I can’t begin to express the anger I feel at the current state of Healthcare availability in the United States. I am faced with a position in which I am unable to afford the insurance to cover the Healthcare I will be providing, let alone any deductible in the extremely rare event that I need care.
I realize that my writing this is moot, and that this will accomplish nothing. I fully expect that the people hired to monitor these comments lack the power to provide any meaningful assistance. I just wanted to voice my opinion on the matter in the hopes that this comment, along with many others, reach the right people.
Please. Please fix healthcare. I think the ACA had all the right intentions, but that it was poorly executed. Please help us!
Thank you for your time in reading this.
I’m curious how this can be deemed affordable. Tell me where I can find the required money to pay for this?
I currently make 36,400 a year and support a family of 3. After taxes my take home is 25,480. This leaves me with 2,123 a month take home. I pay 1000 a month in rent, 50 in utilities, 210 car payment (required for work), 70 car insurance, 70 internet (required for work), 130 cell phones (required for work), 190 credit card, 100 in gas. 50 in household supplies (toilet paper, toothpaste, shampoo, et cetera). this leaves me with 253 a month (58 a week) to feed and entertain my family of 3 which is just doable. That 9.5% silver plan means my monthly premium is 288 (that still costs 50 to see a doctor and 6000 deductible, so I’m paying 288 a month for something I can’t use). This means I am making NEGATIVE 34 a month.
How is this affordable?
I cannot afford another bill. My check is gone on bills and I have to charge food and am going further into debt. I cannot afford basics like dental and vision.
I cannot afford insurance. Who can I talk to? I would like to talk to someone and submit my finances. I have no secrets.
If they continue to hurt the working poor in this way . I will need an easy payment plan for these fines.
Is that available? It looks like no one cares. I really would like someone to discuss this with. There are a lot of us.
Unreal. I still can’t afford another monthly payment right now, even with the tax credit amount I am applied for. It’s not for you all to decide what I can and cannot afford. You don’t know the bills I have to pay. And the fact that I live on peanut butter sandwiches. And now the money that I WORKED FOR, you are STEALING from my taxes. How is that even real?
Obama Care Facts….Please address the usually overlooked fact that states like Alabama are refusing to extend their coverage to all of those who fall into the gap between Medicare/Medicaid/CHIPS and Obamacare. This seems to be the place that most folks commenting on this site find themselves. That the actions of their respective states to extend/provide the coverage to these gap folks (low wage earners, students not covered by parents, etc) is largely to blame. That without Obamacare and Medicare/Medicaid/CHIPS there would be many many more in that same gap. What would be the solution then???
We only get a few angry comments on the site, despite tens of millions of visitors. We address them on our sticking points page: https://obamacarefacts.com/2015/12/29/obamacares-sticking-points/
So the Medicaid gap and the rejection of Medicaid is a double pronged sticking point. On one hand we have millions without coverage, this is a moral problem for me, and a complex cost problem (both providing and not providing coverage costs money). But politically it is devilish, people are blaming OBAMA for Republicans rejecting Medicaid. This is something someone with a basic understanding of tactics would have seen coming a mile away.
If I was playing a game of chess and had no morals, I would make this move too. However, hard working poor American families aren’t Pawns in a game of chess. They are Americans.
I have to say the Medicaid expansion rejection is dubious and is one of the few moves I think will come back and haunt the GOP for a while. Can’t erase what is done, and people are starting to get what Medicaid Expansion means.
We elected two Bushes, but by the third it seems hopeless. Americans don’t like getting fooled two or more times (think the second Bush had a quote about this).
Well there it is. Another year with no insurance. I have a good job and I work hard. I guess that’s my mistake. Before Obama care, my employers always insured me and life was good. Now the idiots in DC fixed everything. My employer stopped offering coverage and Washington has decided that my budget can take another $250 hit. Well it can’t and it won’t. I have too many other bills. I guess the solution for me is to just not get sick and take the fine on my taxes. If I can’t afford the fine on my taxes you will throw me in jail and then I’ll have health care. Great country. I’m so happy I have all of these wonderful people in Washington fixing my life. I hope that all of the elected officials that brought this on, somehow loose their insurance and get a very slow, very painful disease. I’d call my representatives if I felt I had any. This whole mess is just Democrats vs. Republicans. All they care about is beating the other team, none of them care about representing their constituents. I’d like to say to all of them “Fu** you! Eat a big bag of Sh**!”. I wish I could believe that things would improve after the election but I know they won’t. We’ll just get a new crop of thieves and liars that will figure out a way to take more. Great system.
My lowest option $89 a month. I get paid every 2 weeks-$13 hr, bring home $792 every 2 weeks. Rent is $700. The balance of 792 + 92 doesn’t cover food gas utilities, car insurance etc now, But some genius DECIDES what I can afford????????? It is not even health CARE- it is a health business. Some wiseguy that planned all this HAS TO KNOW that if I sacrificed even MORE to pay the 90 a month premium, that there is no way in hell I could afford any deductible or co-pay!!!! Come on, seriously! I am doing the best I can! All this Obamacare does is ensure the ridiculous expotential profits made by the industry can continue. Basically, the government is stepping in to help pay the exorbitant charges for everything, so that the big corporations still rake in big bucks. This really really sucks. But I feel so better seeing the above comment that you feel for people. Thanks alot.
What if you have had loss of income just in the last few weeks and can no longer afford health insurance but did enroll? I helped my ex-husband enroll and then he lost his lease on business property? Should he just go to the Medicare Site? He will be 60 in a few months and simply can not afford anything right now.
You can adjust the amount of marketplace tax credits you will get based on your projected annual income. If you will miss work for a few months you may be able to project at the low end of what you will make netting you more upfront tax credits now. You’ll need to adjust credits at the end of the year on form 8962 for actual income, but updating the marketplace with your current situation can help you with a buffer for the months you are getting back on your feet.
Other options include Medicaid (if your state expanded) and then re-enrolling in Marketplace coverage when income comes back.
How about charging for healthcare based on how healthy a person is? Don’t smoke, don’t drink, eat well, variable exercise, and engage with others. I’m one of the healthiest people I know and I’m still charged the same as someone who is literally about to choke from their poor decisions. No, I will not pay you 10% of my pre tax income to cover their foolish behaviors.
Think I’d rather take out a life insurance policy for $10/month.
NONE of this makes any sense. I am self employed business owner with two mortgages…i do not qualify for any cost assistance whatsoever, and the plans I would like are more than my combined monthly mortgages. Yet I will be penalized for not being able to afford Obamacare…. This is ridiculous.
Well, I was really excited to sign up today but that soon changed. I’m unemployed and my wife and I carry a lot of debt. Even with assistance and credits I can’t afford a bronze plan and pay the bills and buy food. I honestly am at a loss. I have been defending Obamacare to all my friends for years and have run into a brick wall.
Sorry to hear that, assistance is based on income after some deductions, but it doesn’t take into account things like debt. Make sure you aren’t over-estimating income, a small amount of income can have a pretty big effect on premiums and cost sharing.
So…bottom line..if you live in Virginia but make less than $20,000 a year, your life and health is expendable…you don’t make enough to be allowed to live. Social Darwin ism at its best. Good to know.
Our income is roughly 44,000 annually (gross) for our family of five. 2 adults, and three boys under the age of twelve. My insurance through my employer is 45 a pay period for myself, dental and vision is another 10 every two weeks. With a 6800 deductible, to add my children would be 400 a payperiod (adding my spouse is no longer an option). The boys currently qualify for discounted insurance through Nevada Medicaid, which helps. But my husband would receive very little assistance with his premium, which are very high for the clark county area. If we didn’t work opposite shifts, childcare would cost us $25 per day, per child. After all of our expenses, including groceries for three boys there just isn’t anything left to cover if anything actually happened to my husband or I. Discounted insurance for the children is all we qualify for. Maybe if goverment programs or the market place went off of
citizens net pay (approximately 37,000 for our family) rather than gross they would see what we actually have to live on, and what is a realistic expense for families.
i have a suggestion give it to us free or don’t charge us. I am unemployed so why does it still cost me.
My husband is on disability and i dont work as i stay home to help him we dont have any taxiable income. I cant afford no more than 50. A month but i havent been to a doctor in over 10-15yrs and i do need to go what can i do?
Obamacare is the worst plan. It does not benefit the working lower class American people. It IS NOT affordable. The penalties are criminal. This country is a mess. Unless you are RICH RICH RICH or on WELFARE WELFARE WELFARE you are screwed. My daughter makes $13 an hour, pay rent, food, gas, car to get to work, car insurance and OBAMACARE would cost her $197 a month with a $5,000 deductible and $60 co-pays. She can’t afford that. In fact, most people can’t afford OBAMACARE. It interesting reading the comments to see how many people DO NOT benefit from OBAMACARE and to see no response from this administration or their pathetic statement that it is only 9.5% of your INCOME. Taking nothing from nothing leaves nothing.
I have never voted Republican in my life but you can rest assure I will be from now on. Obama’s primary focus in the 8 years of administration was to support and bring illegal immigrants to the US. He only wanted his name on a healthcare plan. He did not care about the quality of AFFORDABILITY of the plan.
I hear what you are saying, but I don’t think this is a totally fair assessment. Governance is hard and solving the nations healthcare problem is hard. I do feel that he sincerely tried and I think the candidates for 2016 are on the whole significantly different… and even the closest, Hillary, will build on the foundation. What was possible 8 years ago doesn’t define what is possible now. Change tends to happen slowly in America.
I made @ 44,500 this year but health insurance is impossible. After child support clears me out I only bring home @350-390 a week! I can barely afford all my bills every month and things my children need. I am stuck. Can’t get medicaid etc. Health place is way unaffordable and insurances that ho off my income go by what I make not bring home. This really sucks man. I’m trying to do everything I need but can’t get a break.
Here’s a radical idea…. How about when you visit a doctor/ hospital they just treat you, because you are a citizen of one of the wealthiest countries on Earth and we can afford to do it? Instead we have this ACA which promotes itself as being affordable: but read any of the comments here! As a country we are forcing both the middle class and the poorest citizens into premiums they cannot afford and into huge deductibles that make having insurance at all completely pointless… Unfortunately the administration I voted for has done nothing but perpetuate the destruction of the poor and middle class and the expansion of powers for the wealthiest companies on the planet. This is just another device to further separate the wealthy elite from the poor; and to make insane profits for privatized insurance and pharma companies who lick their lips at the thought of mandatory coverage; there is no incentive to compete, only to price gouge. And we can thank our government for opening the doors to these predators without offering any workable federal option.
It’s time for BERNIE SANDERS and his “radical” ideas! The pharma, insurance, banks and other predatory corporations have grown to a point where they CONTROL policy. We need to say no more!!
My husband and I have insurance, but we have an adult son living at home who won’t work. We’re struggling just putting a roof over his head and food on the table. Now we’re supposed to pay for his health insurance too?
Because he has no health insurance, this year, we’re having to pay an $816.55 fine.
The fee is based on income, but certainly this can be the case. If he was filing for his own taxes then you wouldn’t have to pay the fee. Generally though sorry to hear this, that is an unfortunate situation.
So why do you let him leave ve there for free? Adult children living at home should help their parents, the same way the parents helped them when they were little. It’s in the Bible, I checked
I find that the penalty is cheaper than the insurance. I make 30K a year, no kids, not married. I pay rent, utilities (no cable), car note, school loan. I was offered only a 50$ relief from yall and my monthly payment would be about 250$ a month WITH a 5k deductible. I’m not sure how this is supposed to help me. Please tell me what I’m missing here.
Just did my taxes using turbotax. I checked a box that said I can’t afford premiums. It asked if I had an exemption or filed for one which I have not but still it said my penalty was waived for 2015. Is this correct?
Hmmm, well you can attest that you can’t afford premiums… but if that isn’t true then you might have some refund withheld (as per the fee). Read up on it here: https://obamacarefacts.com/obamacare-exemptions-list/
and here: https://obamacarefacts.com/form-8965-health-coverage-exemptions/
I lost my ins. In Dec 2015…I was eligible for Medicaid until this past week because I am now receiving unemployment! I am not eliglble for any credits and make to much to receive Illinois Medicaide! After I pay my expenses I am left with 290.00 for gas and food for 1 month! The lowest premium I can purchase is 400.00. I can’t afford gas and food but Obama forces me to pay 400.00 leaving me a deficit of 110.00 per month! Of course I will starve to death because my choice is to pay for insurance or food! Explain how the government has the RIGHT to force me to choose between food or insurance?
Oh….and just try to get help!!! laugh out loud! Not one person from any government agencies can help me…NOT ONE!
I AM SORRY to the moderator but this is INSANITY, you say tax credit, but this money is taken out of our refund, FOR HEALTH INSURANCE THAT DOES NOT PAY ANYWHERE ALL HEALTHCARE NEEDS, you are taking the only money for for any sort of fun out of our lives that WE EARNED TO BEGIN WITH, and if america wasnt INSANELY fiscally in debt, we would all be given free healthcare. you say its not 240, not 240 , only 60 or some crap which is still 700.00 ON TOP OF THE 1,000.00 YOU ARE TAKING OIUT OF MY REFUND, or you are not well educated ?
Don’t want to give the wrong impression. I’m not OK with the struggling going on as a result of the law and healthcare system. I simply support reform of healthcare and want to help people figure this thing out.
The way the ACA works lots of people do get tax credits, which lower their insurance costs, which can result in net savings. But I agree, there are a few layers of problems that need to be addressed to ensure our future. Healthcare is a big one and the burden on MANY tax payers is becoming too much to bear (this includes middle class, corporations kicking the can down the road over seas, small businesses, and our poorest who are still dying on the streets without healthcare due to the rejection of Medicaid expansion).
Still, the world is complex, and the ACA does a lot of good for a lot of people. We can’t lose sight of that.
Your answers are no solution for my 31 year old son. He earned $300.00 in 2015. Yes, 300. He lives in Utah with a friend.. I’ve been paying just about all of his living expenses and medical expenses. I guess this makes him my dependent but I don’t dare claim him on my taxes because of the huge penalty. He obviously can’t afford Obummercare and he was refused medicaid because he doesn’t work enough hours. I can’t afford to pay his health insurance and his living expenses so living gets priority. What are our options.
So, Obamacare would have actually given your son free coverage until he got to the point where he made enough to buy his own. But Utah rejected Medicaid expansion. You are right though, don’t claim him if he isn’t going to get coverage (or you’ll owe the fee).
The best solution (and it’s not great) is for your son to use the denial letter to get catastrophic coverage through the marketplace (which is high deductible an expensive typically). Aside from this local charities, paying out of pocket, and short term coverage are technically options.
I want to point out here, as i’ve done elsewhere, that Medicaid was essentially rejected as a specific tactic meant to turn people against Obama and the Democrats (people can’t get coverage, blame obamacare). Given that we write about the law and read all the comments, it is one of my personal biggest pet peeves.
https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid-chip-program-information/by-state/utah.html
I am an independent, full time student living from couch to couch while I get my college degree, because I believe that that’s important. Because of this, I can only work part time, with a monthly income of only $180/month. The most “affordable” health insurance in Kansas is $167/month. YOU tell ME how I’m supposed to afford to live when I’m already going days without food as it is, while trying to pay for this “affordable” insurance because I’ll get a fine next year from the IRS if I don’t.
Please, explain. I’ll wait. I’ll wait until I die for Congress to get their heads out of their butts.
Too many similar stories here. Mine’s the same. After paying Mortgage and loans there’s no way to make the insurance premium. What little is left goes into an emergency fund (which seems to be tapped monthly to pay for auto / home repairs). Hoping against hope a change in the current administration will eliminate the penalty for not having insurance as there’s no way we can pay that either. It sucks to be middle class.
I hope Trump keeps his word and does away with this Obamination healthcare scam. It’s such a shame that Americans have the worst healthcare in the world and so absurd. Voting out greedy politicians is the only way to go now. It sends a clear message that we are fed up with their BS. Why not make the congress a 2 year term and cut their benefits when the term is over, or why don’t they pay for medical themselves like we do? so much waste and grandiose expectations given to the wealthy politicians. Stop buying into this healthcare and it will fall apart. Most doctors are going private and will treat you for cash they to hate this system.
Even though Obama promised (on live TV) that we could keep our health insurance, which was a blatant lie, my insurance company secretly dropped us last year without even notifying us. We had this insurance for more than 40 years. Then without warning we got a bill for almost $1,000 for blood tests. After over 40 years we were dropped suddenly without any warning whatsoever. It’s like pulling a rug from under you and watching you fall to your death. I absolutely will not pay for this blood test under any circumstances. What, if anything, can I legally do about this unfair, unethical and probably illegal situation?
Here is a word of advice, never take anything a politician tells you in a talking point as gospel. Governance and society are nuanced, the 1,000 pages of the ACA can’t be summarized in language fit for the consumption of 320 million Americans. The actual “keep your health insurance” line needs about a page of qualifiers to be completely true.
Anyway, you can 100% appeal any insurer decision like this. There is no way you should have been dropped without warning for no reason. Nothing in the law allows for that. https://www.healthcare.gov/appeal-insurance-company-decision/appeals/
I work in healthcare and I can say for a fact Obamacare is ruining healthcare and running up the costs worse than ever, the fine for not having healthcare is unconstitutional and a scam to collect more money from the poor and middle class. So unfair to the young and old struggling to survive. My advice to people who can’t afford it is to just use the ER for health care they can not turn u away and they can’t collect money you don’t have.
all places that Ive applied to is at least 100 a month I can only afford 40 what are my options
Medicaid and marketplace tax credits are the best first stop. If you get rejected you may be able to get catastrophic coverage through the marketplace.
Obamacare is a joke. My husband and I had a silver plan at $580/month. The next year it went up to $617 a month. For 2016, it went up to $850 a month- almost as much as our mortgage. We had to switch to the lowest, crappiest, bronze plan available, which was $627 a month. We don’t qualify for any subsidies and don’t have kids, so we get nothing. We’re both relatively young and healthy and only go to the doctor for checkups and emergencies. It’s cheaper for us to forego insurance, pay the penalty and save that money for an emergency visit; especially with the deductibles that make these plans completely worthless. The only people benefitting are those who live off the government full time. The rest of us hard working folks are screwed. Can’t wait until this &(*#(* gets overturned.
I have $3500 on medical bills and you would think having health insurance would help but that would not even cover my deductible all having health insurance would do is make my situation worse I lost my job this year and had to take a pay cut to find another one now I’m screwed I was going to get a healthy return this year that I desperately needed to pay bills but that is gone and I owe instead. If I had paid for health insurance last year I would have been evicted lost my car probably my job and my marriage as well and I would still have medical bills. I cant afford to pay my Obamacare bill but it’s cheaper than paying for terrible insurance either way I’m screwed…..
I can’t not afford my high deductible insurance plan. It really hurts our finances. My kids have chip. My husband has his company insurance but when he adds me its really really expensive because he works for a small company. Needless to say I don’t qualify for assistance because I could get coverage through is company. You say there is assistance. Where can I find it?
Well as you say your options are limited here. You can apply for Medicaid base don income, but when you have access to coverage through an employer you either have to get employer coverage or prove it is technically unaffordable and then get permission from the marketplace to use the marketplace instead.
Obamacare is a scam it is destroying out healthcare system an lining the pockets of government employees. We have all been duped.
Any solutions?
I’m diabetic and just lost medicaid because i was stupid enough to get a temp job. i now earn $500 a week for the next few months. rent is $1500. i cant afford this bs. right now, ripoffcare has only given me two choices. 1-quit my job or 2-move to another country. i am currently looking to give up my citizenship and move to canada. i dont need this. the market place wants me to pay $220 a month and $4000 out of pocket per year. my salary doesnt cover this ripping off. insulin is expensive. syringes are expensive. the extra pills i have to take are expensive. might as well just give up and go on welfare and get everything for free. there is no point in even trying.
In a very literal response, you can move to a state like Washington that expanded Medicaid and has a fair cost of living (outside of downtown Seattle).
I am freshly divorced, decided to take on all the marital debt because I have good credit and my ex does not. However, taking on this debt has made me have little money for hardly any extras including health insurance. I have taken out consolidation loans to try to lower monthly payments…but still…I make about 32,000 a year, a decent income for just one person, I am religiously paying the debt, I have never relied on government programs. I continue to have good credit and am not about to throw it out the window because niw the government wants to tax me to death. I forgot to mention, I am a 40 year old female, I do not drink alcohol or smoke, or put myself at risk for any disease. I will take the penalty at the end I guess. God bless America!!!
My husband’s yearly income average is $100,000, however he has $70,000 shool loan debt and another $70,000 IRS debt plus owe $20,000 old state tax. Our household number is 4 ( 2 adults and 2 children ). We have tried to clear off our debts, and improving.
We would like to have health insurance, but we can’t afford to pay $1000 a month.
I have had health problems that my doctors recommend to have a surgery, which costs over $7000, which was 2 years ago. I still have the same problem and it gets worse and worse. Please help!
That explains very well “what is wrong with the current American system of debt and taxation”. Well intentioned debt can become a slippery slope. You aren’t alone, but there are no great solutions here. There are ways to write off debt, but government backed debt is unusually sticky.
I would see a tax specialist on this. There are lots of ways you can reorganize things.
Thank you for your reply. Well, that is what I have gotten the same answer over and over for years. I am very surprised to see HOW EXPENSIVE to get house insurance for middle class people, the further more, even I get the insurance, they don’t cover as much as I expect for..
But they support for people who don’t work, though having numerous babies. That is just unfair.
Not house… health insurance.
I have had to pay for not having insurance and I don’t have the money if I did I would have gotten it years ago. I have been off for 4 years and can not get any help from anyone. I am sick but no one seems to care. Someone told me to sell my house yea right and then I want have a place to live. This isn’t affordable at least not for the average person. They base this on my husband income which isn’t much here in East Texas. We can’t even pay our bills or buy food but you want me to have insurance. How about throwing this idea in the trash, refunding anyone who wants to cancel and lower the cost to see a Dr or be admitted in the hospital. Those costs are outrageous and you know it. But you’d rather continue to make the rich richer and the middle class suffer. Also you could allow anyone 60 and older free medical care. They shouldn’t have to fill out all those forms to still have get more coverage elsewhere.
This is a buckshoot tax on the middle class. I have a family of 5, couldnt afford the premiums, and now my “tax return” is going to be about $2000 less when they “penalize” me (or should I say tax me) because I couldnt keep up with the payments.
Obuma is a Joke and he knew when he passed this thing he was screwing over the middle class. The rich HAVE HEALTH CARE and the poor get huge exemptions. So the only group that benefited were the poor. Obuma has screwed over the middle class once again.
My rate would be $2,500.00 deductable and about $400.00 per month.I live alone. I make after taxes less than $2,000.00 each month. My mortgage is $712.00 Condo fee $205.00. Gas bill $70.00, Electric $86.00. Gasoline $120.00 Phone $25.00 groceries $90.00 each week.Cable $116.00 EZ pass bill-$100.00 per month. Auto insurance $90.00 each month. grooming $17.00 each month.I had a full hysterectomy in 2005 due to a large tumor. I also had a heart attack in 2012. This has left me weak. I cannot work 2 jobs. If I pay such a fee. I will have nothing to fall back on. in an emergency. I live from pay to pay and have no savings.How in Gods name do they expect me to afford such a thing. I have many medical problems. But I just ignore my problems as it is not possible afford Doctor visits.
I live in the state of Georgia which is
And this state should be ashame because more services are given to
Unwed girls and the babies they have
Each year just so they can get a large
Refund doing tax time. But how can
You take care the babies and not take
Care if Seniors. But we always let people in the state and give them all
Free services.
Something is really wrong with this picture.
I became temporarily disabled at the end of the year, last year. Upon, returning to work my boss laid me off. I started working from home; making half of what I used to make. My bills didn’t reduce and my housing costs didn’t drop, so I can’t afford any extra health insurance cost. I want a quote on insurance, not sign up for it. How do I get a price quote without signing up for this horrible mistake called Affordable Healthcare Tax?
This does really stink. I was out of work for a few months last year with no unemployment and to get Obamacare- great name-NOT- I have to estimate my income for the year in order to get the credit. A friend of mine did that and ended up making more than estimated and got it right in the rear end at tax time. It is so unfair. It should be government run FOR EVERYONE- insurance should not be run by independents who are just in it for profit. Do it more like Canada-if they are going to force us to pay for insurance. I can’t afford it but it ends up being cheaper to pay the fine at the end of the year anyway. So what if I end up in the hospital- if I had the so called high deductible plan- I still have to pay the bill anyway.
Hey, you voted for Obama. Now you can live with your Democratic president and their “affordable” health care system. When you vote for a democrat, you vote for shared trouble.
I can’t afford 400 month premium and that’s with subsidies. Our income is 47,800 with 3 kids under 18. My kids are covered by medicaid, my husband and I do not qualify. Before aca we had a family plan for 75 a week no deductibles. Now this president expects me to pay 100 a week for a plan that does not cover a specialist? ?
If everybody stopped paying for this ridiculous insurance, maybe ,just maybe, somebody would stop being so greedy. If nobody pays something would for sure change.
This doesn’t address our situation, exactly. We are a family of four and our household income is just over the limit to qualify for a subsidy. I have two medically dependent family members so medical care is important. My husband and I are older. Under the ACA, our premium is twice what it was before – on the exchange it is $1,600 a month. That’s with high deductibles, high co-insurance, and significant contributions to our care. Insurance alone is more than our mortgage. We will spend close to $30,000 this year. Do we have any other option? This is financially ruining us. I have looked thoroughly at the site, talked to our insurer and so far come up with nothing. Thanks for your help.
Yeesh, that is not a fun situation. Have you tried an HSA? There are some ways to lower MAGI like 401ks, HSAs, and other deductions. So that is not a bad route. You can also look into catastrophic coverage or short term and pay the fee, although that is far from an elegant solution. Given your income being close i’m not sure i’d suggest shopping outside the marketplace (as the marketplace plans are flexible if someone loses income during the year).
I rarely even go to a Dr. Emergency or health unit which I pay according to income. Still rare.
My insurance premium for BC/BS (myself and two children) was increased AFTER the open enrollment period closed from $657.64 a month to 918.73 per month. We are all healthy, no prior medical conditions, and seldom use health insurance. We have had one medical emergency claim on my husbands insurance and currently pay approx $250/mo on medical bills. I called to request a more affordable plan because I did not anticipate such an increase on my monthly premium. I was told there is no option for me at all until open enrollment. I was also informed there is no date for open enrollment so I have no idea how long I will be expected to pay this outrageous amount. I have never sought any government assistance. We are hard working middle class family of 4. It seems to me these programs only benefit some while at the expense of others. We have to have to pay an outrageous $3000 health insurance premium increase so that others can be the recipients of discounts and tax breaks. I’m not in search of a hand out. I simply want the right to adjust my policy to a more affordable policy and I am being told that that I can not seek assistance until an undisclosed open enrollment date. This leaves me to pay over $900 a month or break the law and be uninsured. Is there any policy or enrollment exception for those who are no longer able to afford their current policy. Life circumstances and unexpected bills should be considered and qualify as special circumstance. Again, I was never asking for a subsidy just a change in insurance policy to lower my monthly premium.
My insurance premium for BC/BS (myself and two children) was increased AFTER the open enrollment period closed from $657.64 a month to 918.73 per month. We are all healthy, no prior medical conditions, and seldom use health insurance. We have had one medical emergency claim on my husbands insurance and currently pay approx $250/mo on medical bills. I called to request a more affordable plan because I did not anticipate such an increase on my monthly premium. I was told there is no option for me at all until open enrollment. I was also informed there is no date for open enrollment so I have no idea how long I will be expected to pay this outrageous amount. I have never sought any government assistance. We are hard working middle class family of 4. It seems to me these programs only benefit some while at the expense of others. We have to have to pay an outrageous $3000 health insurance premium increase so that others can be the recipients of discounts and tax breaks. I’m not in search of a hand out. I simply want the right to adjust my policy to a more affordable policy and I am being told that that I can not seek assistance until an undisclosed open enrollment date. This leaves me to pay over $900 a month or break the law and be uninsured. Is there any policy or enrollment exception for those who are no longer able to afford their current policy? In my opinion, Life circumstances and unexpected bills should be considered and qualify as special circumstance. Again, I was never asking for a subsidy just a change in insurance policy to lower my monthly premium.
I don’t want it. Plain and simple. Last year I had to pay about 250$ for not having “affordable healthcare” I was employed but they did not offer health insurance and I don’t want Obama Care. This year I will have to pay over 600$ with MY taxes. I work full-time. This country sucks. This government doesn’t know how real people live. I live by my means – I don’t have a big house – I don’t have credit card debt and pay my bills and my taxes every year ( which go up every year) and this is what happens a *&% fine taken from taxes. Doesn’t surprise me. No one can get a head when your always having to make up for the previous year, everything goes up in price gas, property taxes, etc. and now fines what a joke.
I am losing my group comprehensive health care coverage April 1, 2016 because I am leaving my job. I must figure a way to carry a family of 4. My husband is in construction, we own a small business that’s already taxed SO much we can’t keep up. I’ve looked at plans, shopped and there’s NOTHING even coming close to comparing to what we are about to lose. We don’t WANT to be uninsured and have had coverage whether through truncate when I was in the military, individual pre Obama care, or with my civilian employer. Now, I am going to be forced to pay $1000+ a month for comprehensive care for my family, it doesn’t come close to comparing to what we are losing ( with a high deductible), pay only for catastrophic care with a super high deductible which is still very expensive, or go uninsured and pay our penalty every year. NO WINS. I can’t afford the monthly payments on anything decent, I can’t afford the deductibles on anything with more affordable ( but still expensive monthly), and we don’t feel like handing over what is OUR $! Furthermore, most doctors we see are naturopaths and DOs and we pay out of pocket anyway. Where’s ANY relief? This is BEYOND unfair.
If it were ever a time for Civil War, it’s NOW, Here you have a “Government” intent on Breaking it’s citizens, and is only an added Burden on their lives, How many people in Congress has this shameful Ripoff called “Obana care?” & if they can dictate What tou should have & have 2 pay for, then What’s Next??? 4 them the skys the limit.
That is a really insensitive comment given our nation’s history.
I think it’s a Goddamned Shame how Government can dictate what You Have to pay for,and then have the power and nerve to heavily Fine you if you can’t afford it, and that this costly unfair travesty is upheld by the “Supreme Court” is a Disgrace. This “Obamacare” only cares about making the insurance companies even more wealthy, on the backs of the working poor..it’s EXTORTION
Have worked ON the books and have payed taxes thru the nose since I was 14 years old! I am now 48 and due to health reasons I can no longer work full time, I’m a self employed mechanic and do as much work as I physically can each week just to cover bills & expenses! I literally have NO income! And because I’m WHITE and have worked I’ve been turned down for ANY and ALL public assistance that I’ve PAID into! I can NOT afford these forced health insurance plans! Luckily I paid my mortgage off years ago, but prop taxes keep going up 10%-18% on every THREE month bill! My monthly electric bill is $200 per month!, Gas for heating.cooking is also $200 per month! Phone/TV/Internet (one bill) $175 per month! House insurance $140 per month, Auto insurance $130 per month, and that’s just for MINIMAL Liability on a 20 year old car that I’m lucky if I even drive it 4000 miles per year! I have no money left at the end of each month for food! NYC IS a huge overcharging scamming RIP OFF! Forget ever going out anywhere, who can afford to?! I haven’t had a trip, nor a vacation of any kind in about 30 years now and it’s only getting WORSE!! O’Bunga IS just making everything WORSE with his lies and Socialist bullshit! I’m next to suicide since I am left with no other options, but O’Bunga would probably fine me for that too! Scammerica, welcome to it! ANYONE who voted for the flip flopping lying sackoshit deserves a severe beating!
I applied for a plan that was affordable (after assistance) . It turns out that at the end of the year I ended up making a few extra dollars in tips than expected. What happened next? I had to pay back all the assistance they gave me for the entire year. 100%of it totalling 1900.00. If you can afford it now, you won’t later. It is very depressing to try and not make more money this year so I’m not penalized for it around tax time. For fear of having to pay some crazy amount next year I just cancelled my insurance. Now my cancer and other illnesses will go untreated because being in a worse financial situation would probably be more detrimental. I can’t fathom not having a place to sleep because of mandatory costs that do not benefit me. On top of not being able to afford insurance I can’t afford the deductible and I can’t afford the bills. How about you ASK what people CAN pay? Or instead of penalizing people who can’t pay with a fee they also can’t pay, what happened to community service? Or some kind of alternative to money? I would take jail time over having to spend money because I just don’t have it.
So we are a family of 9 in PA. Everyone but my husband qualifies for Medicaid. Suddenly the state is telling me that they’ve calculated his self employment income wrong for years when is comes to deductions. He’s 63 and shows an income after deductions of $1069 a month. $12838 a year. Was referred to the market place and the cheapest plan is $479 a month. With a $6000 deductible. I don’t work and the other 7 are our kids from kindergarten up through college ages. How is this insurance supposed to be affordable?? That leaves less than $600 a month for food, bills, housing, etc. I would have thought we’d qualify for some kind of assistance – but nothing is showing any sort of financial assistance. He’s on health sustaining medications (high bp, cholesterol). We can’t afford to pay $479 a month and then the huge deductible on top of that….I don’t know what to do. He needs to see a specialist for a hernia and his prostate and now we can’t because we can’t afford the insurance let alone the deductible… How do you find out if you qualify for financial assistance? It doesn’t say it anywhere. 🙁
High deductible plans make coverage worthless. $6,000??? Who in the already overburdened middle class has $6,000?!?! Why would any thinking person spend $150 a month on “coverage” they cannot even use? The whole thing is insulting and punitive.
This article misses the whole point. I choose to be self insured rather than to go broke.
I’m a single mother of one and I make around 24,000/yr. My job recently switched from nonprofit to for profit which knocked me out of getting a subsidy through the healthcare market because my job insurance is now affordable. The insurance is only affordable if you are not overweight and don’t smoke. I am both which will make my insurance to be $400/month. I can’t afford that and still try to pay rent, water, etc. So what is a person to do? Obama care has been the worst thing ever.
F you and Obama Care too! I took my dog to the vet today, and that was $150.00 f-g dollars. I need medicine to control my blood pressure. I AM OUT! Dr. wants to see me. I am f-g broke and can’t get f-g covered! F Obama Care! I will probably die from high blood pressure because Obama is a cock sucker who will only get the f-ng insurance covered to the gimme bastards who wont f-ng work because they are usually lazy fing drug addicts! I work for a living WHEN there is work available. I need 900 hours per year to be covered by the union. I have been lucky to get 300 hours per year. When I am working it cost me $550.00 fng dollars a month to be covered and if I use it it is more fing money! F-ck Obama and his f-ng lie of affordable health care. It is only affordable to the f-ng scum of the earth who just don’t want to work for a living. Everyone else is F’D!
Well you have F-ing B-ls of steel cursing at the Commander and Chief like a drunken sailor. Anyway, President Obama expanded Medicaid to all low income adults and YOUR state Republicans actually rejected the measure for all the low income people in your state. This is why you can’t get coverage.
You should know that this is something every single Democrat is against as illustrated by the years long battle to get this passed. https://obamacarefacts.com/obamacares-medicaid-expansion/
If I become a green card holder for less than six month or even just four or three months in 2016(I am still a F-1 student now), and I do not have health insurance coverage when I am a F-1, but I will get it after I get the green card. Would I get penalty when I do my tax for 2016 in 2017?
I don’t understand this. I am unemployed. A new graduate trying to find work. I cannot afford this. I have no income. Yet you except me to pay over 100 plus a month on insurance. Oh and I love being threatened with the fine. This is really wrong. I CAN’T AFFORD THIS!!!!!!! Please do something. This makes no sense. I qualify for nothing and I have nothing. Now I have to deal with my student loans and I HAVE NO JOB!. It’s awesome how some people in this country live off the system. They get by but me who fights for myself. Works hard and can’t get by. I’m angry, and like many others I do not see a point in this. You are forcing us to do something we can’t do. This needs to change!
If your income for the year is below the poverty line, than you are exempt from having insurance.
Why make people get insurance. Then we buy something we can’t use.
I think the deductibles and premiums have been a real sticking point of the law. But ideally it is to protect people in catastrophic incidents and to provide cost sharing on the basics (or at least to ensure people have access to the basics, like preventive care).
You keep saying that the insurance coverage helps in catastrophic events but what about people who are on regular regiments? Have to see a doctor once or twice a month for follow up care? The medications – some people take upward o 14 different ones? If you don’t have regular income, how can all of this be afforded if you have to pay full price for everything up to $6,500 deductible which for some people, is 1/3 to 1/2 of their yearly income? And don’t qualify for Medicare. Are they to do without, get sick and die on the streets?
100% agree with the basics here. The out-of-pocket costs make it so those with middle-incomes will put off a doctor because of cost, and lower incomes (while they will have less costs) may put off care for other reasons. I care about human beings first, and political parties second… but only as a means to make change that matters for the collective (hard-working American families and those down on their luck).
Just so we are clear, I’m not satisfied with what we have, I am respectful of the hard work done so far and am trying to do my small part to help lead the charge in regards to demanding more. https://obamacarefacts.com/2015/12/29/obamacares-sticking-points/
ObamaCare is a joke. Ridiculously high premiums and making it illegal to not have insurance. I’m right above the level for medicaid but I can’t afford the cheapest plans above everything else. Now I’m being charged 1000$ for not having insurance!?
That isn’t exactly right:
The annual fee for not having insurance in 2016 is $695 per adult and $347.50 per child (up to $2,085 for a family), or it’s 2.5% of your household income above the tax return filing threshold for your filing status – whichever is greater. You’ll pay 1/12 of the total fee for each full month in which a family member went without coverage or an exemption.
https://obamacarefacts.com/obamacare-individual-mandate/
And……that’s ok…..695$????? so does it even pay to work my pay isn’t increasing. Do you understand that healthy people that have insurance (me) don’t go to the fucking doctor….? I don’t want to go to the doctor or hospital because I don’t want the bills. Doesn’t matter because if you didn’t have enough bills and stress you can rely on our government who does what the people want (liar) will do the right thing (which is send you a fine for not getting health care when you don’t need to begin with). Awesome!
The thing is , that they really don’t care.. I cant work due to a medication pump that was put inside of me. I could work but no company will allow me to . I am a liability to them. So I cant get a job and still haven’t got disability in 12 yrs. I have lost everything. Family , home , cars , boat , savings , career and most of all my mind. But I fall between the cracks and can get NO HELP FOR ANYTHING. I have went without food for days at a time for years. No meds sometimes for months. I worked my whole life and was doing very well but my life has been hell. I have to beg for everything. My country and state does nothing to help the people who have worked and wernt bums living of government there whole lives. Really upset. Glad to see free healthcare Really happen.
So how do you get insurance if you have no job no many and don’t pay taxes .
It depends on if your state expanded Medicaid. If they didn’t typically you can’t get coverage, but you should check with local assistance programs and public hospitals and see if there are region specific options. I’d call the state medicaid office first.
okay why am I being forced to buy insurance when there arent even ANY doctors worth going to in this town? anyone worth going to is 1-2 hours away. Iv made multiple dental appointments for them to be canceled, so what good would insurance even do for me, let me just pay out for something i never use!!
Daughter age 32 made bad choices, went thru treatment and jail. Has not worked for months. Can’t get a job due to past felony drug charges. If you must have health insurance but have nothing but debts and are homeless , how do you pay the fines?
If your income for the year is below the poverty line, than you are exempt from having insurance and thus don’t owe the fee for not having it.
It is mathematically impossible for the middle class to afford Health Insurance. In my situation, the same insurance industry that reduced reimbursement rates by 45% is the same insurance industry that raised premiums by 80%. In August 2014, Harvard University released a report titled; An Economy doing half Its Job. The synopsis was that Americans face an abysmal future with lowering wages and rising taxes. The report revealed that on September 1, 2014 Corporate America was planning to push a reset button and push wages back to 1995 but with inflation factored in the real reset would be 1989. Skilled and College educated private middle class Americans lost 25 years of pay raises. The middle class has fallen from 61% to 41% for the first time in American history. Many elite are fleeing the country and obtaining citizenship in other countries as the fall of the middle class signals a countries collapse.
Politicians know the middle class is pulling out of their driveways every day to go to work just to pay their taxes and bills. We are the new working poor. Those we elect to represent us know this is happening, we know they know, and they know we know they know.
A couple with one child in America can earn $100,000.00 a year. But after they pay taxes, overhead, and costs of living, their remaining income drops to below poverty levels for a family of three on Medicaid. This middle class couple is then expected to purchase Health Insurance. The lowest rates for a family earning that amount is $1,145.00 a month with $6.000 deductibles for each family member, $14,000.00 a year. or pay the fine.
Sadly the popular solution is to raise the retirement age to 70. If this proposal becomes law, the middle class will work an additional fifteen years longer. then the public sector who have the option to retire after 23 years, many cannot, but they get the option to do so with HC and a pension. The public middle class ion the other hand works without benefits of any kind and are sadly the most underserved class in America. We will work without Health Insurance and know that we will never be able to retire. The private middle class is a world away from the public middle class.
Meanwhile, the private middle class hangs on in desperation searching for meaning in a meaningless society where those that go to college, are skilled, work hard, and play by the rules and wait for our political leaders to have the honesty and courage to look at what is happening and implement real change.
I am neither Democrat nor Republican, but I have supported President Obama and the Democrats throughout the past seven years. I don’t think I can do that any longer. Why? Because of health care. I earn just under $1,000 per month after taxes. After I pay my rent, household utilities, car payment and auto insurance (a car is needed to get to and from work in Wisconsin), I BARELY have $150 dollars remaining from my pay. Out of that money, I have to pay for food, because the State of Wisconsin has cut my food stamps down to only $24 per month. By the end of the month, I am eating plain noodles with salt and pepper on them. Despite this, I am NOT eligible for Wisconsin BadgerCare (the state’s Medicaid), because I apparently earn TOO MUCH to qualify. Sure, because broke and starving means I’m living an oh-so-luxurious life. So now I get a notice from Healthcare.gov, wanting me to enroll in health insurance. This is where you lose my support. Why? Because there’s no way I can afford to pay a premium of several hundred dollars per year, yet get NOTHING out of it. Even shelling out what amounts to my food budget, I still wouldn’t be covered for anything, because I would FIRST have to pay over $6,500 in deductibles before insurance would begin to cover anything. And even then, those “low cost” plans don’t cover anything! In my eyes, it’s not a good deal, and is not worth it. What’s the point of shelling out all that money when you don’t get anything in return?
Your problems are not with Obamacare but are due to the fact that the Wisconsin GOP refused to expand Medicaid, paid for with federal dollars, to cover you.
We did look. You told us we qualified for an exemption… then sent a BILL.
We took the plan that cost 0 to avoid the IRS.
You raised the cost.
We just got the SECOND bill for 2016… the first was over $100, now it’s over $250!!
I CAN NOT PAY THAT. So you’ll add what , penalties, and punishments, and …
I had a quad bypass and am fighting to remain solvent. Paying cash, because
the insurance paid only $25000. We got wiped out, but, I have barely kept up, but thank you God we have done it, and thank you to my wife for doing without so much. We even cut wood to stay warm. We only owe a fraction of the original bills…
In comes Obamacare! Wahoo.
I now get forced into taking money away from my cardiologist and docs for the current treatments to avoid a SECOND major operation to pay for Obamacare.
Now, I already live on a mix of donated meds, samples, and low cost alternatives, and pay out the bill the the doctors, who are barely doing status checks to see how the free meds work.
Now a year later Obammacare is telling me to pay them DOUBLE for 2016 what it cost in 2015… for the same insurance that will NOT take on my old existing bills, and is JUNK if I ever get sick again… it will pay NOTHING useful until I cough up what 10k? 20K? Obamacare is going to bankrupt us, I guess because the first trip in for major medical didn’t quite make it happen.
Am i supposed to just stop going to the doctors for my EXISTING regimen, and stop taking the meds I take so I can *maybe* sell everything and give all my money to OBAMACARE to avoid being punished by the IRS ?!
GRRRRRR
I’m not sure what I will do. This is HIGHLY unfair to both ME and the DOCTORS who worked to keep me alive and are still doing so and allowed me to pay out the bills…
it was slow but I was making headway, paying them off for the work they did, and geting ready for my follow up work.
I don’t know whether to just quit working and live off the governement… (except I’m not old enough for Social security, yet…. )
or start looking for illegal ways to make money. Hurt people, rob and steal, or what.
I am self employed working nearly seven days a week for whatever I can get to keep up now. WTF is the POINT?
Gee lets see. My options, realistically:
” Give us all your money, and stop going to the doctors because you wont’ have any cash and remember… we wont pay your old bills… then please don’t die, just keep paying us” or … “fail to do that and let the IRS show up at your house to take things, what little you have left.”
Yeah, those are the two options. Thanks, Barry. Thanks Nancy. Be sure to send a big ol’ check to Blue Cross ggg. Wonder who the insurance folks support. It Ain’t me.
HOW IS THIS A GOOD THING?! HOW IS THIS FAIR?! HOW IS THIS RIGHT?!
This program has screwed up many lives. I have some friends that used to pay cash for all their medical needs that are now required to register with OBAMACARE. They are paying more now than when they paid cash. I am a contractor who does not live with his family because of work. The Government has given me the option of paying high prices for worthless insurance or get a divorce so I can make sure my family is taken care of. Nancy Pelosi, Obama, Harry Ried, and the rest of the idiots how forced this crap on us should be forced to be covered under the same program, without the government paying for it because I know they make a lot more than I do. The coverage I did have has been changed/dropped every year since forced upon us.
IT IS NOT FAIR TO BE PENALIZED $700 for not having health insurance!!!!!!!!!
We should be paying for our medical services as we purchase it. It will give us incentive to take good care of our health, to prevent problems. We should not have to pay for the poor to keep reproducing when they can’t support a child.
Men should be having their scrotum tubes tied at birth. Then when they are actually responsible enough to take care of a child, then can get them untied and reproduce. Til then men are out of control, and we are having to pay for it.
Most middle class have coverage through their employers, but what about the ones who don’t? My husband doesn’t and we were quoted on the bronze plan $600 a month with a $12,000 deductible which had to be made first before insurance would pay, this meant even with this insurance we still could not afford to see the doctor. The insurance companies would be making $7,200 a year on us, they must love this plan. We were fined $1,000 this year for not having insurance that we couldn’t afford. Unfair!
I supported obamacare, I work hard and got a good raise. Now I am no longer eligible for medicaid because I am not married, but I take care of 3 children and their mother. We co-parent… but I am the only one with income. Medicaid doesn’t recognize her as a dependent as so I am no longer eligible for medicaid.
But I have two therapy secessions a month and on two prescription costing upward of $400. I cannot afford even a portion of the cost before using up the deductible. This will take away valuable opportunity for my family in investing in the very small things I can afford for the kids.
Low income families should not be forced to get married!
Low income families should not be penalized for making a bit more after working hard for a raise!
Even if you get get married it’ll be worse then you fall into my dilemma the family glitch
Once you’re married, you only need to eat 1/3 of the food you used to eat. You can be sheltered from the elements by 1 wall and an awning instead of the 4 walls and a roof of single people. You have someone to cuddle up with, so you only need 1/3 of the heat you used to need to make it through the winter. If someone is the sunshine of your life, you only need 1/3 of the electricity single people use to light their way in the dark. Since you never want to be parted for long, you only need 1/3 of the gas money you used to spend getting to work, unless you trade in your car for a unicycle.
So, marry young, because as soon as you turn 19 and start encountering real bills, you’ll be able to spend your 20s and 30s happily accruing debt at a 16% higher rate than when your parents could claim you as a dependent, and we all know nothing brings couples closer than facing a mountain of financial turmoil together.
I’m a 56 year old women who was unexpectedly widowed two years ago. I worked full time until the end of August 2015 and had health insurance as part of my benefit package. However, after i no longer had employment I, of course, no longer had health insurance. I receive around $400 per month from my late husband’s retirement so I don’t qualify for Obamacare, I don’t qualify for Medicaid due to my age and I live in Kansas.
If I could afford health insurance the deductible would be so high I couldn’t afford to use it, so I would be paying for insurance just so I wouldn’t be penalized by the government at tax time each year. After doing my 2015 taxes this year I found that I was penalized $145 for not having insurance for the last four months of 2015, so I filled out the appropriate exemption forms, sent a verification of my monthly income along with a letter explaining my financial hardship and it was “Denied”. So, now I have to pay $145 in penalties while only making $400 per month. Oh, yes and in my hardship letter I advised that I applied for Social Security Disability in January 2016 but non of it mattered. I called the number provided on the denial letter and they said I could try to appeal the decision but I would just be telling them what I’ve already told them.
From where I sit Obamacare is the same as NO care:-( It’s not helping low income people who still have their minds.
I missed the enrollment. I payed the fine. Now I’m seriously sick. Can’t afford to go to hospital. I payed a doctor to tell me I’m sick he says I need upper and lower GI and nuclear stress test and more bloodwork. Cant afford it due to the fact I can’t work overtime due to the fact I’m sick. Who gets the money I payed in fines and what do they do with it?
You can’t be denied emergency care at a hospital even if you aren’t covered and that is exactly what the fees are for. Hospitals can get reimbursed for charity care provided to uninsured patients from those funds. If you have medical bills currently, than you qualify for an exemption from the fee, but you will have to apply at healthcare.gov
I am forced to pay a monthly premium of $120 — the cheapest I could find through a temp agency I work through. The deductible is $6,000. I have to pay over $400 per month for asthma medication. So now since my lousy insurance does not cover ANYTHING till I’ve made that deductible, I’m out $520 per month. This is killing me financially. I should just stop using the inhalers and die of an asthma attack then it would be all over and I wouldn’t have to deal with the constant stress.
We need help we can not afford any insurance at all and we have no job and no income we need health insurance very bad can someone please help we’re about to lose everything we own
i only make 8,000 a year but my state has not changed the medicaid plan so I cant afford health insurance or get medicaid. But the problem is I ended up getting some health issues recently and now I cant go to the doctors because I couldn’t afford insurance and if i cant afford that then i definitely cant afford a regular medical bill without insurance. So I will just end up just dealing with this sickness and hope that it doesn’t get worse. Also since I make too little I don’t get a discount on the insurance to make my monthly cots lowers. so i’m stuck. I’m sick and I cant afford the help. Now what?
I want to have an answer for people who are in this position, but this is a matter of Republican ideology plain and simple. A finger point doesn’t help a person get coverage, and so I typically can’t think of what to say to people in this position. Options include raising your income a bit and looking for local charities.
It isn’t reasonable to have a 1 party system, so then Republicans must join the rest of the world a move toward the center. No other way to say it. Sorry you are caught in the middle though, it is part of what inspired us to start this site.
I can not afford 400 a month for coverage, that’s crazy and why do you not get tax credits if your employer offers coverage, even if its to expensive to get.
So I’m left with $50 on pay day after paying bills and that’s before groceries and gas….I do qualify for some subsidies but I still can’t afford $80 a month.
I am 60 years old and on a lot of medication. I have some major health issues but not enough to get disability and medicaid. I can’t work but the state of NC states that I’m not eligible for medicaid unless I am on disability(dieing) or have a child in my home. I tried to work but I started fainting and was diagnose woth syncopy. Still not eligible for medicaid. The cheapest marketplace health plan was over $400.00 per month. My income is barely $400.00 a month. I came to the conclusion that I will have to move to a state that gives medicaid based on income or have a baby at 60 years old Lol.
my wife pays very high premium where she works.$45.00 co pay-$5000.00 deductible-I am retired on fixed income.she cannot afford to go yo a docter.most in the system are able to work but get all their medical paid in full including dental and optical.she also has to pay 20% of her medical after the deduct
does this seem fair that the lower and middlr class working people have to pay for all this Obama care?
I make $300 a week. Me and my 2 kids need insurance. They don’t live with me.
Obamacare is pretty worthless from what I can see. The deductible is so high for the cheapest plans that it’s worthless. I live in a state that didn’t expand medicaid so here I am without health insurance like I have been my entire life. Stuck between making too much and not making enough. Guess those are the breaks. Over the past couple of years my health has been in steady decline and the way it’s going I’ll be dead in 5 years, if I’m lucky. I’ve hinted around to my girlfriend that I have heart problems but I don’t think she takes me seriously and all she says is go to the doctor and get checked out. She has excellent health insurance through her employer so I guess that’s why she thinks it’s simple to stroll down to the doctor’s office and run some tests. I haven’t told my family because there’s no point in it. They’ll just worry and why bother adding more problems for them. Like a lot of people, I had a lot of hope that things would change when Obama got elected but it quickly turned to disappointment. I’ve accepted that I’ll be dead before anything really changes for the better. Would it hurt this country so much to stop spending trillions going to war and start spending on the citizens who’ve supported this country their entire lives with their backbreaking tax dollars. So my advice for anyone that can’t afford health insurance is to just accept it as it is. Don’t go into debt and in turn make yourself a financial burden on your family. Try to live every day like it’s your last, even when you’re so sick you can barely walk. Try to keep a positive attitude and remember to laugh every day. Good luck to you all.
I think we need to face the fact that this plan is fundamentally flawed. I lost my job – and the insurance that covered me and my husband. He makes $15K/yr, and I’m on unemployment. However, because we file separately – a lot of issues have made this a necessity – we are not eligible for assistance. We signed up for Obamacare because it’s required, but can’t afford the close to $900 per month for insurance for both of us. I’m looking for work like crazy but because I’m in my 50s….
Unemployment payments haven’t been adjusted anywhere to take into consideration the additional, significant financial burden of these premiums. We can’t afford insurance, but we can’t afford not to have it. If something happens to either one of us medically, we are up a creek without it.
Seriously, U.S. government. Can’t you do better than this? This thing was really not thought out well – at all.
This website is not related to the government in anyway, but we do try to do our part to ensure that people have a public place to have their voices heard. Please do contact your state and federal legislators though. Tell them your concerns and remember to vote.
I made 9.50 hr live in low income housing I paid 209 a month in rent I got 50 cent raise my rent went up 300 dollars plus they take out 370 a month garnishment from 9 years ago and I had insurance at that time! I only make 10.00hr how can I afford health insurance?
With other bills my son couldn’t afford to get healthcare and if he had it couldn’t afford to use it. It is like communism forcing people to get healthcare that can’t afford it and then charges them a lot of taxes when you can’t afford to get it. That just absolutely is wrong. He now owes 1800 dollars in taxes because of this and has no money to pay it after he pays his living expenses.
We feel for people fining themselves in this position. Yeah Right!
I have a chronic medical condition, went with an HMO with a high deductible and the best premium I could get was $1100.00 per month. Can’t afford to have a roof over my head and health insurance. Our income was drastically cut this year due to a change in my health status, and our current income sources. We also own a business that doesn’t pay enough to cover the cost of the premiums. We didn’t realize that we were going to be this short during “open enrollment”, so didn’t apply. Sounds like my only option is to pay the penalty on my taxes next year and pray that one of us doesn’t get really sick.
Medicaid goes by gross income. They don’t take into consideration you’re court ordered to pay child support. I’m in the same boat. Let me know if you find anything out. I lost a filling in my tooth 4 months ago and can’t afford insurance to get it fixed. My wife and son are on medicaid because our son is only a year old but it’s about to run out.
i couldnt afford my health care for turn of this year it went up.. i tried getting mnsure but they never contacted me back and i tried calling but all i ever got was “All people are helping others… Goodbye” something like that … and then it would hang up…I have an almost two year old… plus my own health problems… is there any way for me to get health insurance or at least get it on my son. any help is a blessing.
I do not qualify for medicaid and I can’t afford obamacare. Our income a month is $2215 for 2. What can I do.
Where I live the average cost of an apartment is $1,804. Mine is in a low income area and is $1,740. It has gone up over the last 5 years from $1,275. I am a cancer patient in my late 50s. I had medi-cal last year, but this year I got a part time job and some self employment income, made $1,350 a month teaching. I was still spending down the retirement funds I had saved, even just paying food and rent. But what happened because I got the part time job is that I also lost my medi-cal. I had been told when they registered me by phone that it would roll over automatically and become Covered -California if I made more income, but that turned out not to be the case. It didn’t. I was ill during the months after medi-cal was stopped, and then tried to get Covered-Cal coverage and was told I was denied both medi-cal as I make too much money even though I make nearly $400 less than just my rent let alone food, and the I did not qualify for Covered Cal. So I suddenly, because I got a job, I have no health care coverage until November, when they said I could reapply, 7 months from now, as a cancer patient, this is frightening! I paid into insurance most of my adult life, but when you are actually ill, it is not possible to pay it. Even in November making what I do with the age I am, there would be no way to pay for food and rent and Covered California. Because the deductible, the premiums reduced by what Obamacare would pay are still about $275 a month or $3,300 a year, and the deducible is $6,500, in my area, on the website, that means before they even start paying any bills you are paying $9, 800 to them. Then if you are ill you would pay out of pocket of another at least $6,500 or a total of $16,000 at the lower end of the range to as much as $22,500 at the top end of the out of pocket, deductible and premiums combined, and that it the lowest out of pocket listed in my area. If I got Bronze, which is not even available with my current health provider as they say they are not required to offer all options, If I switched to Bronze the out of pocket max is even higher. Even the lowest figures listed would not allow me any money to pay rent or buy food and buy health insurance, even if I could get a full time teaching job, which is very difficult considering my health. What people need to understand, is that the system will break down as soon as you are ill! Even if you were able to afford it when you were well, so what good is it. Then you have to pay a fine, because you can not do something impossible to do.
I cant afford my bills already, how can I afford more bills?
I tell you, you aren’t alone. Think the general sentiment is felt by most Americans, sometimes it feels unclear if legislators are fully in touch with this fact.
So if you can’t afford health insurance and can’t qualify for free insurance you get penalized. Thanks Obama!!
don’t qualify for above, making about $3000.00 more this year. Cost of plan went up $25.00 from 60.00 to 85.00 and then lost the the $100.00 credit now get 4.99 credit. have a mortgage this year cant pay $185.00 for almost no coverage, my plan was pretty worthless to start with just covered birth control and in case of emergency. want to see if Im better off just paying the penalty as it seems I have a choice of getting insurance or eating! Our system sucks! crappy coverage, high prices! Thanks Republicans!!!! no point leaving name or email there’s no help here.
I can have medical insurancr but i have to quit working then i will not able to ear or pay rent
Stupid fing democrats
Can’t get a job. Can’t afford. Can’t get exemptions. Can’t get any aid. Can’t get added to spouse’s because it’s even more expensive. Can’t use the doctors who know me and my kids for the last 9 years because HMO. Can’t get the RX’s needed because HMO thinks they’re my actual doctor. Paying full price for everything until deductible is met (what’s the point of insurance again?)
Seriously considering the penalty – or moving. Tried everything else.
My son has had a hard time finding work. I know everyone thinks the economy is great but he has really been struggling.
How can he pay premiums if he doesn’t have a job?
In situations like this the answer should be Medicaid or a family plan, but in reality about 20 states have currently rejected expanding Medicaid. This means in some instances there are no or limited choices.
https://obamacarefacts.com/obamacares-medicaid-expansion/
I am self-employed and an almost $300 a month Bronze plan was too expensive for me.
So, I filed my 2015 return and got penalized….
If I can’t pay it, that means that it’s not affordable…
My 10 yr-old daughter, who has severe autism and is considered intellectually disabled, is currently on Medicade, but is about to lose it and her therapies because, I now “Make too much money”.
If I have to pay for the therapies out of pocket, it will put my family worse off than before I got the job that “pays too much”.
Can anything be done to help people in my situation?
I have an underlying medical condition that will require treatment the rest of my life. While I make a decent living in my overtime-dependent income in the field of human medicine, I cannot seek higher education without surrendering my insurance benefits through my agency by becoming a part-time employee. At present, based on my last year’s income, $2000 deductible and associated treatments for my disease, my total was 17.5% of my annual income after taxes. Without coverage and treatment I cannot work. Without work, I cannot have the insurance I require. I cannot flourish because I cannot seek higher education in my field, as I cannot risk the loss of coverage. I can only scrape by with very little wiggle room, based on my 70+ hour work weeks.
(Medicaid/Medicare doesn’t cover the necessities of my rare condition, I’ve checked into it several times).
Is this normal? Are there people out there that are just as stuck as I am?
This is dangerously misleading. You should warn people that if they accept a subsidy and then their income increases, they will have to repay thousands of dollars to the IRS.
We warn that all over the place. They repay the money they borrowed. The double edge sword of the ACA tax credits. We also advise simply taking just a small portion of the tax credits in advance if you are unsure.
However, the way this works is something someone can make work for them if they laser focus on taxes… which you know, most Americans won’t, and this is part of the silliness of the American tax system, it favors those who understand the white-hat exploits… and it just gets even sillier at higher incomes.
I am a 59 year old male. This January, my job was eliminated after 16 years due to restructuring. I had great insurance, a Blue Cross PPO Gold Plan in which my employer paid 80% of my almost $800 a month premiums. I am currently on a severance package that runs out May 31st.
Went online to healthcare.gov and was not sure how to enter the data for the state of Virginia other than the amount of money earned the 4 months of severance. I have not applied for unemployment because of the severance so have no idea what I will get from them to key in and is that considered “income” by Obamacare? The amount I entered for only the 4 months of severance did not qualify for deductions and said my premium would be $400 a month and a $6,500 deductible. Not doable. My monthly bills, minus any insurance premiums, is $1,000. The most unemployment will pay (pre tax) is $358 a week. If I add my bills and the $400 for insurance I will be in the red every month.
Like everyone here said, how does the government expect people to live week to week when bills overpower what is coming in? I thought there was supposed to be some sort of relief for the premiums if you make under a certain amount? What are the outlets under these circumstances?
I also have expensive monthly medications which with my current insurance only cost $10 but will go over $100 each under the market plans. I was on one med that costs $14,000 a month but pay only $30 a month currently… cancer meds How will those be paid for?
Thanks obamacare for making it impossible for self employed people to afford health insurance. Bravo
Well remember there is Medicaid, tax credits, and a ton of write-offs, plus HSAs, and 401k’s to drop MAGI.
Seniors pay less on their health insurance than people aged 18-64. Medicare pays 80% of costs, then the retiree can purchase a supplement that will pay the rest of their bills for health care. They have an option for a separate drug plan, and the donut hole is disappearing. So my daughters health care is $152 a month with a 4000 deductible. I can’t afford the deductible, so any tests they want to do, I can’t afford. She has issues, scoliosis at 30+%. We are paying more for an 18 year old than what seniors get. Now why can’t they do this for the rest of us? By the time the baby boomers are gone, Medicare will go bust and I will have paid into it my entire life and reap no benefits. Costa Rica is looking better and better than America.
I don’t expect any answers, I just needed to express our grief. I’m so sorry to see so many others going through the same issues.
My husband and I made some sacrifices so we could attain some serious goals in the next few years.
We relocated to a cheaper apartment in a low income neighborhood, away from our community. We we’re doing it, really making it work. Finally, after graduating from a recession, struggling for years to get on our feet. We we’re so relieved and proud of ourselves for figuring out a plan.
But now our premiums went up from $92 a month to $377. So it’s back to the drawing board. Instead of reaching our goals, we have to pay a thousand dollar fine (we have no idea where to get the money) just so we are NOT covered. I know we can try and get exempt, but why do all the paper work? Just to NOT have health insurance. And I’m told us dropping our state plan will affect our son’s health care plan. It’s like they want to punish us.
Doesn’t the government want families to pay off student debt and buy a house? Send their kids to preschool? (We do not qualify for Head Start btw) We can’t work to attain these things if all our work is for ONE bill.
I have no idea how we are going to pay $377 plus minimum of our debts, loans, preschool, rent and bills. What happens if our rent jumps up again? I am so grossly disappointed.
And because it’s all income based, if I take another job to cover the $377, the premiums go up with it. There’s no way out.
Why are the insurance companies allowed to jack up the prices so high? I wish the government could stop them from overcharging. Or least drop the fine.
Thank you for listening.
There are little things I could say, and I could frame some issues in a way that might make you feel better… but I won’t belittle you or those like you who struggle under the growing mountain of debt and rising costs (like so many others who post here).
Your story illustrates the sticking point of expanding social programs in a capitalist society. My message is, we did great with the ACA, now we need to do better… that means addressing the weight of debt on the middle class. It is creating a “glass ceiling” that ensures the middle class will have trouble with upward momentum, and the current safety currently has holes and a glass ceiling of its own. I see real problems despite all the good that is done. I hope others in positions of power do too.
Question what are options for my wife and I my job pays my insurance but not my child’s or wife’s and the wife’s is around 600 a month we can’t use the marketplace cheaper plans because we fall into the family glitch why hasn’t that been fixed since its been known since the start. A coworker of hers is paying 300 a month for coverage for her, her husband, and child. Her work offers no health insurance
I was all for the ACA (I even wrote to the President saying how happy I was to finally have healthcare coverage) and now I see it is completely worthless, I’m back to square one with no insurance coverage at 50 years of age. I’ve worked my whole life for this kind of treatment. The first two years, I was able to afford basic high deductible health care at about $150 per month (I had a very low income). Now, two years later, my husband and I make $34K a year jointly and the health insurance has jumped to $680 per month for high deductible coverage. Give me a break, the health insurance companies are now being subsidized by our government and I haven’t seen any CEO’s salary being reduced, instead many of their salaries are going up. Shame, Shame on us. Stop Corporate Welfare.
Furthermore, my husband has a job with one of the top tech companies in America, which supposedly gives him benefits, but the ACA is now just an excuse for companies to offer exactly the same programs that you get when you are unemployed. It’s just inexcusable. So now, we can all work and not get health benefits. Things are worse than before. I’m totally disgusted, this country is in the dumper. I’m voting for Bernie Sanders and nobody else. WE NEED HEALTHCARE FOR ALL, yes people, socialized medicine. Clinton and Trump are both are worst nightmares. I for one will be out on the streets demonstrating come November and beyond. If this isn’t fixed, I’m looking for work overseas.
Here is the REAL ANSWER, if you are poor in this country you are going to pay for the rest of your lives. You are going to pay while the insurance companies rake it in year after year. You are going to pay tax penalties because you can’t afford insurance and then you are going to be sick because you can’t get insurance. Then you aren’t going to be able to pay the tax penalty and you will lose your home and end up on the streets.
Welcome to America.
I legitimately can’t afford health care I called and the lowest plan I can get is 140$ a month. I’m 20 with rent insurance gas phone food and all I make under 20,000$ a year. I can not afford this, and am being denied any aid. Welp this sucks ass.
You should have access to health subsidies through the exchange during open enrollment, also because you are young you should have access to a catastrophic health plan. But for me personally, I feel like we should be expanding Medicaid to people of your age and income. You are young and healthy and don’t need the extra burden while trying to get off your feet.
If you make under about $16,500 in MAGI (Income after deductions) and your state expanding Medicaid, you may be able to get that free or low cost Medicaid I mention above. Here is a link with more information on all this.
https://obamacarefacts.com/federal-poverty-level/
For the record, I live in a state where the Medicaid expansion WAS accepted, and I still can’t really afford insurance. We’re pretty much in a situation where we’re gonna roll the dice without it (we’re all healthy individuals anyways). So, you can’t really blame our predicament on evil GOP leadership.
Well no, if you are above the 138% poverty level then the affordability is a matter of private insurance and public subsidies. If you are below 138% then Medicaid is free or low cost and it is a different story.
Trust me, if you are one of millions without coverage in a GOP state then yes, this is the GOP. Although evil only applies to some. Sometimes it is legitimate ideology. I am just as frustrated at those not working with the GOP as I am at the GOP not working with the Dems.
it’s kind of refreshing to hear a resounding “nay” against obamacare now that it’s taken effect for awhile. Felt like I was the only one up-in-arms about losing money.
I really can’t afford spending $600+ a month between my wife, myself, aftercare and summer school for my kid, without giving up quite a bit. Tbh, I could afford it if I never: smokeed cigarettes, drank, bought caffeine, went out to eat at lunch, ate less organic, or made shoddy attempts at home improvement on Sundays (my only day off) and instead tried to find ways to make myself even poorer, or work under the table so I can avoid taxes and if I tried to find cheaper ways to fix my house which I probably won’t be able to afford soon anyway, then I could pay these ridiculous bills.
Now, I’m not the brightest guy, but I’m of the mindset now that the people who feel the same way as me should just vote for the guy who has a realistic way to get rid of this healthcare law, move on from there and then rethink the healthcare crisis; because this whole thing has created a big crisis for me, my family, and from what it sounds like, a great many others. It created a serious crisis for me where there was none before. We are not”Europe” and we never will be. I just think we can fix one crisis without gaining another one.
That’s what I’m thinking. Thank you all for your comments.
It all seems good on paper to get rid of the ACA, but the GOP is honest about their replacement plan. I read the last one and it didn’t cut spending, it just gave tax breaks to businesses and put sick people in a different pool to lower costs on the rest. You still have the same problem with people being uninsured.
The answers aren’t easy, but, despite what politicians tell you, they don’t have to involve people dying on the streets and corporate profits. They can, you know, just be in the public welfare and operate as non-profit. So no easy answers, but lets not hang one American out to dry for another. Let’s focus on a solution that works for all.
I’m a single parent raising 3 kids. I make a 50k a year in nyc. My rent is $1500 a month and I pay $180 a month for the kids insurance. Cheapest plan for me is over $300 a month not even close to what I can afford. I don’t qualify for Medicaid or any exemption. I’m a veteran ,I’ve held a job since I was 17 (20 years) I work 60 hours every week it’s bad enough I can’t afford what’s being offered, but what I don’t understand is why are my tax returns being penalized. How can you fine someone for not being able to afford something? This is really digging me into a deeper financial hole every year. Not to mention as a tax paying citizen how much longer can I work 60 hours a week and “contribute” without at least being able to know If some health issues arrive before it’s too late to treat and now I’m unable to work, provide for my kids and continue “contributing”. This has to be fixed.. Your ruining hard working people’s lives that contribute to keep healthy the ones who don’t contribute? I even was told illegal immigrants can get Medicaid I doubt that is true but if it is just wow!
A fire fighter I talked to yesterday had his life saved because of the ACA. Ran into a burning building one too many times, got a disorder, was literally dying on the street after being dropped from private coverage, ACA saved his life.
So he disagrees, but yeah, we have to do better for the middle class. Won’t argue with you there, in the meantime the whole prejudice against poor people makes little sense. If you get sick, and then can’t work, you have no income, and thus as far as taxes go are a poor moocher. This is why we need access to healthcare to remain expanded. It’s a slightly tricky concept, but think about it.
My husband and I are both 24, and we have two children, one of whom has Autism. I work full time with overtime, my husband works full-time and I work a weekend part-time job. Having a special needs child means that we will meet our deductible. This year it was met within two months.
When you look at our premium (well over 600 a month) and our deductible (11,000), over 30% of our income goes to healthcare.
We have worked so hard, but our savings is gone, and we are going to have to start deciding which bills we don’t pay each month so that my children don’t starve. We don’t qualify for Medicaid, so if we cant afford a treatment or therapy for my son, he has to go without.
We are a couple grand behind in payments to my sons therapy center (we have a year to pay his deductible amount), so at the end of the year my 3 year old son will be kicked out of therapy.
The therapy that gives him the best chance at leading a productive life. All because my husband and I work hard to provide for ourselves.
But we are the class of people that nobody thinks about, and no one really cares to consider.
There is no way I can afford insurance with our income. I was diagnosed with cancer less than a year ago, underwent surgery and now have follow up care and risk of recurrence, plus medication. It’s a struggle to scrape the premiums together, not to mention my deductible and co-pays. I get zero assistance and my husband and daughter are not covered not are they eligible for assistance. Adding up my bills, we already can’t afford food (very minimal bills – no cable, no fancy phones, no vacations, no savings) how am I supposed to pay $7000 a year for health insurance. Now, they say I missed a payment and cancelled my coverage and since I don;t qualify for assistance there is no grace period. My Rx is $500 a month. Now, I have no insurance, no Rx, not enough money for food and they will try to hit me with a penalty for not being covered?? If I can’t afford car insurance, I don’t get a car. If I can’t afford health insurance, what? Am I supposed to take my life?
I am a disabled senior on a small fixed income with high rent that is average rent for my area. . I cannot afford the “nobama” care rates that covered CA charges us for insurance. The county I live in has cancelled all but 2 of the “nobama” care policies because the doctors are not getting paid. Of course the only two that remain are out of my price range to afford with high rent and regular monthly expense that take every last dime and that is without buying food as I live off food banks only. Have not afforded groceries in two years! So how is a low income senior with no disposable income and a limited monthly income that sets me in the red every month supposed to afford these high premiums? Its outrageous that I am forced to take insurance to pay every month and that forces the choice not to buy food! I am diabetic but cannot afford medical care as I cannot pay co payments and lab fees etc due to the high premiums that are only offered where I live. I cannot afford to go to any doctor due to the co payments and I do not have even one dollar left every month so no doctors visit possible
So Covered CA has given me no choice except to be forced to pay something I cannot afford and cannot use As of today I have gone 6 months without insulin or any medical care because the co payments are to high ! So I go without all medical care as I cannot afford the premium but am forced by law to pay it or I am fined heavily by the IRS because I choose not to have kids and have only a one person household! I don’t qualify for any other aid as I am a single senior. This is an outrage that our President has forced seniors into a program that prevents them buying food !!!!! I am outraged ! This is wrong. I am suffering in hunger every day going without any food in my house because of this program. I already talked to Covered CA and they could care less. Only 2 policy available here and they cost what they cost. I do not qualify for state health care and do not qualify for Medicaid according to your site. Most doctors and medical corporations here do not take ANY “nobama” care clients. They hate this program and refuse all patients with it. i was told by one doctor that we are all deadbeats and he refuses all “nobama” care in his practice !
What kind of country are we living in t hat makes seniors go hungry when forced to pay premiums they cannot afford!!!!!! Why are people made to suffer and go hungry and without proper medical care yet have to pay by law every month for coverage we can never use to to its exorbitant cost ?
I pay 750.00 a month for obamacare. I am currently not working and have epilepsy and an autoimmune. Half my doctors do not even take this plan (even though I have the highest ranking one). I can’t do this anymore, too expensive. The other plans also have such high deductibles (over $2,000) and still insane costs. I cannot qualify for Medicaid and even if I did, the specialists I need do not accept it. My savings is now nearly gone. There is nothing I can do and have to wait until open enrollment to get downgrade to another plan? This is horrific. Health insurance should not cost this much! It’s not even quality health insurance. My treatments are not covered and like I said, only the horrible doctors take these plans.
If you pay high premiums and have a high deductible, you are paying insurance premiums AND clinic, lab and imaging costs out of pocket. If you get sick, you pay out of pocket. Why have the insurance? It only covers major medical and most policies only cover 60 or 70% of that. The balance owed will still put most Americans into bankruptcy. People are paying unreasonable monthly premiums and deductibles to pay for someone else’s medical operation and can’t afford to take their own child to the doctor. Check out all the new fancy headqquarters built by all the insurance companies since this law was passed. Check out their annual reports and salaries of their officers. Also, doctors are increasinly specializing and investing in laboratories, imaging centers and outpatient specialty treatment centers that they send their own patients to without disclosing that it financially benefits them to do so – a direct conflict of interest. Many doctors are entrepreneurs and not healers, making money by selling you expensice treatments rather than providing basic health care. Out of network doctors are jumping into your in networktreatment treatment and you get socked with a huge out of network fee. All the while corporations pump out cheap, unhealthy, high salt, high sugar processed foods that create an unhealthy population that relies on this over priced dysfunctional health care system. Learn something from cultures that respect people, that come together as communities to care for everyone. Where doctors train to be healers, not investors. Enough is enough. This nation, through its corrupt policies is quickly devouring itself.
This Obama health care sucks I’m so glad his &(*%# is out, he made the poor people more poor, I hope karma comes in bite him in the *%#.
It is so strange, because in theory it took about thirty years of blood sweat and tears on behalf of Democrats to pass healthcare reform. Concept being that expanded Medicaid would save millions of lives and cost assistance would help the middle class.
Somehow, between corporate pressures and the GOP-spun Media outlets it has turned in to statements like this.
If you step back, and really think this one out, it has got to open your eyes a little. If this isn’t good enough, we need something better. If your only answer is repeal and replace with nothing, then you really need to do some moral-based soul searching.
Really disgusted by all of this. 46 year old single woman, working all my life. Quit my job in 2015…it was either that, or suicide…Now I’m second-thinking my decision because of the punishment society places on you. At any rate, I went through all my savings and, at times, my income from temping was less than $300/month…enough to eat, pay my phone & get me to job interviews. Now I’m working again and unable to sign up for Obamacare quitting job due to nervous breakdown isn’t a qualifying life event. Work plan is kicking back, too, because I missed open enrollment. WTF people? In the past 5 years I’ve had zero illnesses, yet I have to pay $3000 year “just in case”, when my take home pay is less than $2000/month and 50% of that goes to rent & car payment. I live in a small studio apartment. I make just enough money to pay my bills. Even if I could sign up for the ACA, it’s a joke. The deductibles make the plans irrelevant. WHEN YOU PAY YOUR BILLS AND HAVE $200/MONTH LEFT TO LIVE ON, A HIGH DEDUCTIBLE IS A COMPLETE JOKE. This plan was so obviously created by wealthy people who have ZERO clue what it’s like out there for us.
Serous question please reply: My household was barely scraping by before were made to get ins. My husband was the only one that didn’t have it. I’m disabled so I have to have ins. & always have, we have 2 kids, but also have a minor family member that permintly reside, with no help from his parents. We are having trouble paying bills & putting food on the table, we’re starting to serously drown in debt. Trying to decide which bills we can pay & how much, & which can get skipped. Is there anyway to not have ins.? Even the cheapest ins. we could find is still too much, we cannot afford this. In our town we have a country Dr. that it’s $40 a visit & he doesn’t take ins. If there is a way please let me know. Also sorry if this is ridiculous question, what’s HSA & MAGI?
No worries, no ridiculous questions as they say. HSA is a health savings account (to pay for out of pocket costs), you can fund it each year to reduce your MAGI. MAGI is your Adjusted Gross Income modified for deductions. It is what cost assistance and Medicaid are based on.
In the situation you are in, you should have access to low-cost insurance, but the exact out-of-pocket costs and premium costs depend on your income and region.
There is no super simple answer here without knowing all your details in regards to income, family size, and region (which you shouldn’t post online). The general rule of thumb is to try the marketplace first, find out if you have access to medicaid, and then work to ensure your income is in the best place for your family based on your options and family size (in this funding a HSA and thus lowering your MAGI can really help).
The other big benefit of an HSA is it is tax-free in and tax-free out for out-of-pocket costs.
Unfortunately we are right on the cut off for making too much for any type of state assistants, by about $100. We have compared prices with many ins. companies & currently pay $400 a month for just my husband & this covers 6 Dr. visits & 6 specialist visits & that’s it. For us carrying no ins. & seeing the country Dr is by far the cheapest way for my family, but then we’re finned which we definitely can’t afford that’s what we use to cover home owners ins. & pay our taxes. We are stuck in a rock & a hard place with this policy. I hate the fact that my kids have to eat ramen noodles & hotdogs for dinner more times than anyone should ever have to feed a child that for a meal in this country, or the expired mystery foods & meats you get from the food bank. Thanks for trying to help, but I senserly wish people in situations like mine were taken into account before this was made mandatory. There are so many people in a situation like mine that the president and the others involved with making Obama Care happen should of took into consideration. I’m just thankful ramen noodles hasn’t jumped up in price, hotdogs sure has well all meats have……
I live in Nevada and is currently not working due to I care for my grand kids I adopted and they have disability and requires me to either go to the schools or doctors I can’t afford insurance tried to apply for Medicaid no luck at all can someone help me please
Nevada is one of the better states for the ACA, you should be able to get help by calling their state marketplace. They can help you find out your options, make sure to have the denial letter, last years income, and your projected income on hand, this will help them to understand your situation.
Sooo, because I have a job and my husband also works we cannot get health insurance. 3 kids – none of them are able to go to the dentist or doctor and my oldest is mentally ill. LOVE IT.
For a terrible plan that basically covers nothing and requires us to pay out of pocket when we use it, we would need to pay $600 per month. That is the cheapest one offered in my state and the sales guy on the phone said he didn’t want to sell it to me because he would feel bad about it since it was such a terrible plan.
Seriously??? So the solution here is – quit my job and apply for public assistance??? How does that make any sense? Why would I want to do that? And my ultimate punishment – as if this is not already enough – is that I have to pay a fine (essentially for being alive and of course having the bad luck of not being born wealthy and stupid enough to want to work for a living) at the end of the year so that people who want to not work can sit around and do drugs and get medicaid (which I am sure Obama’s tax fine helps pay for). That people includes their methadone and oxy’s and whatever else they are scamming and trust me they are! Wake up people!
Let’s award the lazy and useless people and punish the hard working average people. Great idea! The rich people couldn’t care less since they have had insurance all along and have never had to worry. The only people getting screwed are regular people that live pay check to pay check and make barely enough to pay their bills and buy food. The heavy heel on the top of my head constantly pushing me down is getting old.
I am absolutely positive of one thing – not a single politician cares at all about any of this because they have excellent healthcare coverage, always have and always will. They are not trying to figure out how they are going to scrape together the money to buy their kids meds every month or how the hell they are going to take their kids for their physicals or to the dentist.
They play their little game of caring to get elected but it really doesn’t matter at all to them what happens to us. I worked in a bank and I would have 1000s and 1000s of dollars pass through my hands daily. After a while money was nothing to me, just something I saw and had to deal with each day. Politicians see people the same way I saw money when I worked in a bank. We are what they have to deal with to get paid.
I love my country but this is BS.
I had signed my Husband and I up to a BCN silver plan, but cannot afford monthly payments any longer, it has drained our savings, and regular payroll checks have never been able to cover insurance anyway. There is no change in our income, as I havent worked in 3 years, we used our savings for healthcare costs. Savings is GONE. We do not qualify for a life event, but cannot afford coverage any longer, Marketplace and BCN are tied in together, and offer no solutions. What is a solution so we may still have insurance at a discounted (cheaper plan) rate, and wont suffer the $695 penalty?
I live on $1400.00 per month after taxes. I have to pay rent food clothing utility bills car insurance and gas. I also pay about $100.00 per month for health insurance. I had to get a mammogram. The bill was $265.00 insurance only paid 58.00 !!! I also paid up on my annual deductible. ..now I also have a medical bill to pay. This is robbery and a crime !! How is anyone suppose to live.? !!!
A lot of people are asking those questions. I don’t know that any of these things are a crime in