There was a time when I would've considered the ACA unnecessary. That I would've been annoyed by it. This was also a time where I had little to no interest in politics. It's funny how life has a way of humbling a person and teaching them something new about themselves on a regular basis. This is a story about how I ended up needing the help in order to make myself better.
"Well why didn't you just get a new inhaler?" I felt a sinking pit in my stomach. I was at a follow up visit to my doctor after ending up in the ER a few weeks before because bronchitis had made my asthma worse and I couldn't breathe. The first thing my doctor asked me was where my inhaler was when this had happened. After all, that was in my plan. I tried to explain to her that I only had one inhaler and it had been stolen the week before when I was riding the bus. Somehow, despite my explanation she didn't understand that since I was uninsured at the time, I just couldn't afford a new one. It was only after the ER trip that a friend of mine had pity on me and bought the inhaler for me.
I lost my insurance in April 2012 because I had been working at a call center that had outsourced its customer service department overseas. This was my fourth lay off in about six years. The whole time I had been trying to go back to school but in playing musical jobs I had never managed to do so. I decided to make school my focus and work secondary and deal with it.
Because I have asthma, I've never been able to get insurance without going through my work before. COBRA would've cost me over six hundred a month, and while my state had opened a high risk pool, it was still too expensive. My NP was awesome and made sure I got refills of my medication before I lost my insurance and gave me a list of community services for when I did lose it, because she knew I wouldn't be able to come back afterwards.
I did everything I could to make sure I would be taken care of. I signed up for a prescription plan at a local pharmacy, I found local clinic that was free, run on community donations. Still there are things that free clinics couldn't handle. Waiting all week to see a doctor because you got sick on Sunday and the free clinic is only open on Saturday isn't helpful when you're so sick you can't breathe. The doctors are volunteers so there's no guarantee of continuous care. In fact, the push is to get you into a local public health or community clinic, but they often were not taking new adult patients or were an hour drive away.
It was about a month after I lost my insurance when I found a lump on my right side, along the edge of the breast tissue. The free clinic provided me a referral but when I called the places they suggested I was turned away. I was told I was too young, that the office no longer provided services, or that they were out of funds for the year. I continued to fight to find a way to access services, but without a referral from a PCP I was getting nowhere. I finally took the time to bus out to one of the few clinics taking patients. They contacted a local imaging center attached to a public hospital to get me in. This started in June, I was finally in for imaging in October. In November I would get a biopsy and find out it was benign. It took me six months from start to finish to find out what was there.
It would be another year before I would get insurance again. In that time I ended up in the ER enough times the doctors started to recognize me. There really wasn't anything either of us could do. I couldn't manage my health without being able to afford regular doctor's visits and medication and they couldn't make a solution appear out of thin air. My wisdom teeth got infected and had to be removed but had to wait two months for a dentist who would help. I was on antibiotics so long I ended up with a GI infection. Bronchitis, allergic reaction, a set of second degree burns from how bad at cooking I can be. They got to deal with it all, despite the fact that most of these things were preventable.
All if this changed in January of last year. I live in one of the states that approved the Medicaid expansion and set up their own healthcare exchange. I was there on day one to shake hands with the Governor, tell him my story, and sign up. I stood up with him to others to encourage them to use the exchange as well. It is the only day of class I've missed since I started back.
Because of the Affordable Care Act I was able to get needed blood work that I had not been able to afford. Reliable access to medication. The first thing my PCP did, remembering how just a few months earlier I had ended up in the ER because I didn't have an inhaler was make sure to get me a prescription for one so I had a backup. One thing I know is I appreciate the opportunity more than I could ever express.
I know there are naysayers out there who will tell me that those things are not really free and that someone has to pay for them. One day I'll graduate and that person will be me. I seriously hope that I am paying to make sure someone gets the care they need with the money I pay into the system. It's saner than paying for what happens when they can't. The system we have isn't perfect, but it can only get better if we put effort into it.
Specializes in Mental Health, Gerontology, Palliative.
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2. 100% Partisan bill (brought to us only by one party)......
Yet Mitt Romney, the republican candidate against Obama way back when. During his time as Governor of Massachusetts signed into law legislation very simlar to what is now the ACA
If forcing rich people to support poor people is such a good idea, why stop at obamacare? Why not force rich people to give poor people houses, cars, food, clothing, and college tuition? Sound good?
And we do actually already require those who can afford it to contribute to housing, food, and college for people can't afford it.
I think you're maybe confusing whether basic components of the law are consistent with the basic principles of healthcare reform conservatives had been proposing, and partisan voting which has little to do with wether or not someone actually agrees with any part of the bill.
Specializes in Mental Health, Gerontology, Palliative.
I have no interest in politics. However, I think part of the reason people may not like the affordable care act is disinformation like this that is prevalent. Deductibles, co pays and medication costs have been rising exponentially for the last 15 years due to health insurance company policies, not a relatively new affordable care act. We pay more because companies want to make billions in profit--plain and simple. And I agree with others that there are still a lot of changes to make but it IS a start.
And thats assuming that the insurance company hasnt found a means of wiggling out of paying.
People I know from the US, her hubby was diagnosied with a type of cancer. The best course of treatment for the cancer was a bone marrow transplant, which the insurance company declined to pay because they deemed it was an experimental proceedure. Despite the copious screes of evidence that stated this was the best course of action for his cancer. Needless to say hes dead now.
Another colleage here told me of a naturalised US citizen who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. This lady made the decision to see out her final days in New Zealand because as a naturalised citizen she would receieve her care paid for. If she went home to the US, she would be leaving her loved ones with a legacy of debt. If what existed prior to the ACA was really that awesome? Why the hell are your citizens choosing to die, half way around the world because its the only way they can be guaranteed to leave a legacy of debt
In 2007, I had insurance covering myself, husband, and stepchild with a $250 deductible, $5/15/30 rx plan, and 90%/10% coverage after deductible for $50 a week.
Now, my husband pays $900+ a month for a $4000 deductible, $15/$30/$50 rx plan, 80%/20%.
I recently paid $1600 for X-rays of my back. I can't afford what the MRIs I need would be. It is hard not to be bitter seeing the constant influx of pts to the ER bringing their kids in for a "fever" of 98.9'F..."you're gonna give me a work note for 3 days, right?" or check themselves in for a hangover...."you can get the doc to give me Percoset right? I have a headache." These folks pay nothing for the ER and abuse it to the point I need Zofran for myself.
Some benefit from ACA, others do not. But aren't we forgetting that the government is not allowed to tax you for NOT buying a product? That's like the cable company charging you $10 month extra because you don't want HBO.
Change the laws and prevent the ridiculous malpractice suits. Then doctors and hospitals wouldn't have to charge so much.
I also used to have a cheap individual market plan which "met my needs" (it offered little meaningful protection from bankruptcy but was cheap). A big part of the reason why I went into nursing was to have the privilege of paying $14k a year for a real plan, which I was happy to pay for.
One of the main reasons for reform was that as the price of overall healthcare was rising rapidly (which obviously translates into higher insurance costs) individual market plans were adjusting to those increasing costs by covering less and less. Unfortunately many people who had these plans weren't even aware of this and were under the impression that their plans were comparable to employee-provided plans. In reality, individual-market plans were becoming more and more likely to not cover claims that it would have seemed they would cover, prior to reform being passed these plans were denying 1 out of every 7 claims, often the most expensive ones. This is why even during the mortgage crisis, health care bills remained the largest cause of bankruptcy, and most of those declaring bankruptcy had "insurance". This leaves these costs still unpaid, shifting them to others with insurance, typically in group-plans, which raises the cost of those plans which then causes employers to drop coverage, increasing the costs for those remaining, etc, etc.
To compare insurance coverage that is actually comparable, such as in states where individual plans were required to be similar to group insurance, the cost of insurance actually went down, as much as 40%.
With the ACA, plans have to meet actuarial value requirements, so by definition you're not paying more than your fair share, what is it you think you're paying for that you shouldn't be? Where is all the supposed extra money?
I would love to know where the extra money is going and why the ACA told Coventry that my previous plan wouldn't satisfy their requirements. Contrary to what many would believe, my previous plan was just fine. We hit our previous $10,000 deductible one year that my son spent 2 weeks in a children's hospital with it. And guess what? That entire year we didn't pay 1 penny over that $10,000 for anything, even prescriptions. Considering the fact that we were only paying about $225 a month toward health insurance premiums, that additional $10K wasn't a huge deal to pay off. Our plan covered 100% over deductible and still does. The difference being now we pay an additional $3,000 a year in premiums and $2600 additional in deductible.
So, I'm not getting how my previous plan put me at risk for bankruptcy anymore than this new one does. As I have just shown using math, the opposite is probably true.
I do believe healthcare to be a basic right - we had Medicaid and Medicare for that purpose already that our tax dollars already go to pay for.
Specializes in E/R, Med/Surg, PCU, Mom-Baby, ICU, more.
The ACA was written by the Senate Finance Committee, a bipartisan group, and includes many of the main requirements conservatives had for healthcare reform.
Representative for New York's 15th congressional district a Democrat. This is the Senate's health care bill. The bill started off with text regarding an unrelated matter but the Senate is co-opted this bill as a vehicle for passage of their reform and changed the text in whole to the health care bill. They do this because the Constitution requires all revenue bills to start in the House, and their health reform plan involves revenue. So they have chosen to work off of a bill that started in the House, even if that bill is unrelated. This was ALL the democrats doing so your statement that this was bipartisan is plain wrong.
Specializes in Mental Health, Gerontology, Palliative.
If forcing rich people to support poor people is such a good idea, why stop at obamacare? Why not force rich people to give poor people houses, cars, food, clothing, and college tuition? Sound good?
Oh ye gads. More of the "if we allow universal healthcare all rich people will be poor because all their money will be taken to pay for the poor peoples healthcare" uninformed and completely untrue hysteria.
(and that is the nicest possible description I can find for this uninformed untrue hysteria)
Our system works. People arent denied needed healthcare because they dont have insurance or because their insurance company is looking for every possible loophole to get out of paying the bill
As a nurse, I'm in the second highest income bracket in my country. I pay tax as does every other NZ citizen. I dont have to pay extras to pay for poor people. My sister who is the emergency doctor (in the highest part of the highest income bracket) and she doesnt have to pay for extras either
Someone who is unemployed can get income support while they are looking for work. If someone is injured or becomes unable to work due to illness or injury can also get income support while they recover.
Our system works. As far as I am concerned the ACA doesnt go nearly far enough, but its a good start.
Shortly before Christmas, I became really unwell with an abcess that festered and I became septic. I was in hospital for six days. I had QID IVABs, 2 ultrasounds, surgery to incise and drain the abcess, as well as regular wound care. I also had follow up wound care at home because of the location of the wound, (under my arm) meant I couldn't dress it myself. The total cost? About $12 for the antibiotics I needed on discharge.
I dont feel remotely bad that the tax payer carried the cost for that. Its what the system is set up for. To provide healthcare and assistance when people need it
Representative for New York's 15th congressional district a Democrat. This is the Senate's health care bill. The bill started off with text regarding an unrelated matter but the Senate is co-opted this bill as a vehicle for passage of their reform and changed the text in whole to the health care bill. They do this because the Constitution requires all revenue bills to start in the House, and their health reform plan involves revenue. So they have chosen to work off of a bill that started in the House, even if that bill is unrelated. This was ALL the democrats doing so your statement that this was bipartisan is plain wrong.
I'm one of the one that fell through the cracks; I worked as a nurse for 32 years, am too young to draw retirement from my former employer and had to raid my 401K for living expenses until I could get on disability with SS. I would have qualified for medicaid if I was homeless but since my roommate paid the rent and didn't kick me out I was ineligible for it here in Tennessee. We still are working to expand medicaid here, but for now the working and nonworking poor are SOL!
Specializes in E/R, Med/Surg, PCU, Mom-Baby, ICU, more.
If anyone is interested in researching about this bill being turned into law I'll leave a link at the bottom.
Initially the House Bill was called "Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009" (H.R. 3590) This bill passed the house and went to the Senate.
The Democrat Senate gutted the above bill and renamed it "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" on December 24, 2009. They did this because the Constitution requires all revenue bills to start in the House, and their health reform plan involves revenue. So they had chosen to work off of a bill that started in the House, even if that bill is unrelated. Not even one GOP member voted for this bill by the Democrats had the majority and it passed the bill. Afterwards it went back to the house and once again only Democrats voted for the bill...not even 1 GOP signature. So yes it was a partisan law and the proof is at: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/111/hr3590#summary/oursummary
Tenebrae, BSN, RN
2,021 Posts
Yet Mitt Romney, the republican candidate against Obama way back when. During his time as Governor of Massachusetts signed into law legislation very simlar to what is now the ACA