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Obamacare By the Numbers: It Isn’t a Pretty Picture for the Working Class

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/what-health-bill-means-for-you/

The preceding website gives some maddening insight into just how much Barack Obama’s health care law, stamp of approval courtesy of John Roberts, will cost working-class families.

Some background:

My family does not have health insurance by choice. This is because my wife and I pooled resources prior to having children in anticipation of health care costs and have nearly always paid reduced prices to health care providers who prefer cash to dealing with various insurance entities and delayed payments. In comparison to the costs of premiums calculated over a decade, we have done quite well with this choice.

In 2014 Obamacare will roll into our lives. Thanks to a calculator posted on the Washington Post’s website, I can now see just how much this law will cost us whether we choose to purchase a premium or not. Here are the results:

Do we have insurance now? NO

Am I under 26 years old? NO

Household number? 5

AGI (Adjusted Gross Income)? $75,062 (hardly wealthy for a family of 5…even living in Indiana)

Marital status? Married

The result? Feast your eyes on THIS:

1. Starting in 2014:You will have the option of buying a health plan through your state’s exchange with federal assistance. Based on your income, your annual premiums for that plan would be no more than $6,042 to $7,131.

2. If you do not obtain insurance coverage by 2014 you will be assessed a tax penalty. The penalty becomes progressively greater from 2014 through 2016, when it reaches full strength. At that point, assuming your current income remains the same and your household consists of 2 uninsured adults and 3 uninsured children, your family would be subject to a penalty of about $2,085.

WHAT A LAW! I have the option of either funneling 9.5% of my pre-tax income into the pockets of an insurance company or nearly 3% into the pockets of the federal government. FYI, that 3% would pretty much cover my yearly gasoline bill to and from work each day. That 9.5% is more than my yearly house payment and natural gas bill COMBINED.

In other words, my house payment will more than DOUBLE if I choose the premium model. From a cost perspective, I would be a fool to choose anything but the tax penalty.

And therein rests the design of the law. These creeps KNOW most working Americans and small businesses will opt for the tax. It is an end-run around the direct levying of a tax because Democrats know how unpopular taxes are in an election year (as 2010 was when they moved the bill through to law and 2012 when they now have to defend it).

In my estimation, Republicans need to hammer this issue 24/7/365. THIS IS A TAX INCREASE ON WORKING FAMILIES…pure and simple…and the only way out is to buy something you didn’t have and do not need…something that costs THREE TIMES MORE than the tax.

Of course, this monstrosity only remains if Americans vote to allow it to continue. Right now, RCP has Obama ahead by an average of 3.7%…to which I respond:

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU, AMERICA?

Are you going to stand for this?

Are you REALLY going to allow Barack Obama to dictate to you what you will buy with your hard-earned jack?

Are you REALLY going to pay his new tax if you don’t buy that premium?

What happened to liberty and freedom? Are we REALLY going to allow Barack Obama and his merry band of Democrats to turn this great nation into the scourge that is the Eurozone?

If rubber-stamping this socialist agenda and trampling the freedoms that have been the blanket of this great republic constitute being an American, then I am ashamed to call myself one. Our greatness is under attack…and I, for one, will fight to the end to preserve my America from the Hoosier State and beyond. I have had more than enough and can contain my anger no more. My sincerest hope is that we will produce a swell of anger and discontent in the months to follow that will make 2010 look like a picnic for Democrats.

Yours in conservatism,

APA Guy

COMMENTS

  • carolina

    This kind of detail needs to get wide distribution.
    I’ve read that younger folks are going to have higher premiums to offset the higher premiums they would otherwise need to charge older people.
    The working folks will throw BO OUT!

    • ohiohistorian

      Why do you think that Barack Hussein Obama hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, is out campaigning for those that DON’T work? He’s going to win on the “bread and circuses vote”.

      • APA Guy

        What we need to do is spell out the dollars and cents involved. That will whip the taxpaying public into a frenzy in short order.

  • Melody Warbington (rwm52)

    to Chief Taxer Roberts with a thank you note. I suspect some small businesses will close up rather than pay up either way.

    • APA Guy

      I have personally spoken to many others who see this as the beginning of the end of their own small businesses once the full provisions of Obamacare kick in.

      We will see the end of America as we have known her if we don’t fight like hell through November. Our country is at stake.

    • APA Guy

      3 days later, his lead is down to 2.6%…and he is trending down in FL and NC.

      Is the American public waking up? :)

      • tnfriendofcoal101368

        First, the crazy outlier Bloomberg poll which should never have seen the light of day is moving out of the average. Second, undecideds 4 months before an election almost always have made the decision to fire the incumbent provided the challenger isn’t a kook and those folks are starting to admit to pollsters “Romney ain’t a kook”.

        • Seedyrom

          Based on the liberal thieves scheduled payments beginning in 2014. My cost has nearly doubled!!!!!!!!!! I pay $115 a month.

          We’ve got to win 4 senate seats and hold the house. Time to stop whining about the Rominee and focus on winning no matter what.

          • APA Guy

            They are crying like babies that GOP governors are turning down socialized medicine that is funded by taxpayers against their will. They want even MORE of our hard-earned money. HELL NO say the good people of many states…including mine (IN).

        • APA Guy

          Even many of the kooks at DK stopped that nonsense after a short time.

          Our base is riled up…has been since Obama was elected, but even more so after the Roberts disgrace. Their side, on the other hand, is far from jazzed about Obama. Many on the far left HATE Obamacare…and I have a sneaking suspicion that Indies will not like what Obamacare means for their wallets when they educate themselves on the matter.

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  • Viet71

    I agree with Roberts’ opinion as a matter of law.

    You demonstrate why Zero-Care is a bad law.

    BTW, you’d find a lot of sympathetic listeners on the Left; for example, at Firedoglake.

    Thanks.

  • APA Guy

    nt

  • statenislandcon

    getting some insurance that covers your kids. Going without yourself is fine, but that’s a dangerous game you are playing – personal savings are not going to cut it if a child get seriously ill.

  • APA Guy

    These investments have been made possible due to banking money that would have otherwise been funneled into the pockets of the insurance industry. I work a $75,000/year job for reasons differing from the need to swim in excess. I teach as a conservative on a college campus to change minds that have been corrupted by liberal academia.

    If I felt it was necessary, I would buy insurance. My appraisal of my family’s situation is that it is a waste of money. I don’t need anyone to TELL me to buy insurance…let alone the slugs in Washington D.C.

  • PowerToThePeople

    no matter how long you have been saving. If I assumed 75000 a year for 40 years with a very high return on all savings plus you saved 60% of the gross, you still would lose all you had with just one major uncovered illness.

    Case in point. 3 years ago, a family member died after a 2 week illness that had 4 surgeries plus intensive care and all that comes with that. After his death during the estate process, the bill from the hospital came in and was way up in the 6 figures, way up. Then we started getting all the bills from all the specialist. Add to this the fact that he was stubborn and when he became ill, he self diagnosed as it being cancer, laid down on his couch and prepared to die. Doctors stated he should have been in their care for the 6 weeks prior and maybe they could have saved him. Had he done what most people would have done and gone to the hospital, you would have to add 6 weeks of care to the bill. It would have probably topped a million dollars.

    You should really look up what a major illness will cost you without insurance and you will see that a million in the bank will most likely not be enough. Not too mention all your effort to save is wiped out in a matter of weeks or months. Let the illness extend to a year or more, you could be talking about a million five or more.

    Even if you have the amount of money, pretty dumb to lose it all when you could have had it protected. What if you live, you are back to nothing or close to nothing. What if you live but require lifetime care? You would be like my friends mom who required care so the nursing home seized her home and assets to pay for her care. 70 years of working and living, gone to an entity.

    We may not like insurance, but it pure economic stupidity not to have it and have the best policy you can afford. Being told to buy it is wrong, but thinking you are too well to need it, dumb.

  • APA Guy

    I never said I have been a college professor forever. I DID work in the private sector once upon a time :)

    Look, this is a personal family decision. My kids have never missed a check-up…never missed a vaccination…never been anything but completely cared for. If we want insurance, we’ll buy it. If, God forbid, something comes up that demands health care, we’ll pay cash for it.

    I appreciate your concern, but we have this. IMO, it’s dumb to argue against facts you can’t possibly have straight…nothing personal.

  • Jack_Savage

    Is daughter’s back surgery with four days in the hospital = $104,000, not including pre-op, rehab or follow ups.

    For my situation I would not go without a policy that covered catastrophic illness, but to each his own.

  • APA Guy

    I think you miss the point of this diary with your comment. We may one day decide to purchase health insurance, but it would be great if that decision was left to me and not coerced under threat of punitive taxation. Under this law, the choice is taken from me…and that pisses me off.

  • APA Guy

    She has “advised” (code for ordered) me to shop catastrophic coverages for the kids first thing Monday. If I find something I can live with, I’ll buy it.

    I still don’t like being told to buy something, but it’s somewhat different when my wife tells me :)

  • earlgrey

    becuase that is the natural order of things. (as I wife I have to say that).

  • Jack_Savage

    And believe me APA Guy, I am well attuned to that particular key to domestic tranquility.

    Good luck shopping – hope you find something that suits.

  • APA Guy

    My problem is, I fancy myself the provider of my home…and thus far, I have done a pretty good job of it. But your points were well-made and taken. There is no sense allowing my lifetime of hard work and saving to be eaten up when specific, targeted insurance can cover us.

    Pay the little stuff out of pocket, leave the rest to insurers…sounds like a good strategy to me. You convinced my wife, and she convinced me :)

  • PowerToThePeople

    your finances, I only have to know how quickly a medical bill adds up and how quickly everything a person has worked for can be lost.

    Lets say you have millions of disposable cash, still way too little. One major injury or illness and a large chunk of that is gone. Have something that affects more than one person, could wipe you out.

    Have you heard about the college girls in Georgia? Young, healthy, active, gets flesh eating bacteria. Besides the horrible damage, bill has already surpassed 2 and a half million, will continue to grow, and will cost this family for life now. Just one of the prosthetics she needs will be in the range of $40,000. Lifetime care expected cost. high 6 figures and maybe into the millions should more serious care be needed.

    I do not care if you do not have insurance, you miss the point. My point is simply, you must not know just how high a bill can go and how quickly it gets there, what it costs to treat major injury and illness, how it is not prudent financially (no matter your station in life) to gamble your life work on staying healthy forever, and just how little you really have when it comes to major medical cost. You could easily go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow with the beginnings of a million dollar bill or more. A million to a hospital patient is very normal. You could not pay enough premiums in a lifetime to outweigh the cost of major medical. That is just reality.

  • PowerToThePeople

    the whole you will buy Obamacare or pay is utter BS. I have had insurance my entire life and it still angers me. But aside from Obama and his nonsense, insurance is financially prudent, especially if you are a saver and a hard worker. Too easy to be wiped out.

  • cbartlett

    My husband and I have been self employed most of our married lives and raised 3 kids, 2 of which now have their own policies when they got married. We have always had very high deductible, what I would consider catastrophic-type policies, for more than 30 years. We have had an HSA policy and account for the last 5+ years, since shortly after they came out. We pay approximately half of what we paid for a “regular” policy and I put a large portion of that difference (up to the legal limit) in the HSA account – WHICH IS OUR MONEY to use for health related expenses. We have built up enough in the account (PRE-tax dollars, BTW) to cover our $5000 deductible, should we need it for something huge. We also use those funds for routine office visits, minor procedures, tests, as well as glasses, contacts and dental visits, which we never, ever had insurance for before. (We USED to also be able to purchase over the counter medications like flu and sinus medicines, contact solutions, etc with those funds also but that was one of the first things ObamaCare took away – couldn’t do that after Jan 1, 2011. Blah.) And yes – like you – we have found doctors who will charge $75-$80 for an office visit when we pay cash as opposed to ones charging close to double that who will “file insurance claims”. It is called “individual responsibility”. What a concept.

    The part of Obamacare that will increase the most for us is that we will no longer be able to have this kind of policy once we make any kind of change to it, for example – having to drop our youngest child who works in our business when he turns 26. The feds WANT HSA’s to go away and they are working hard at chipping at it. We will be forced to pay for a much more expensive policy – probably double – for one that covers all sorts of things we don’t want or need, like maternity benefits or plastic surgery because they think everyone has to pay for the same coverage to be “fair”. No – actually they just want MY money to pay for everyone else.

    I highly recommend looking into the HSA version of catastrophic policies while you still can. I think you can still purchase them in 2012 – just not sure about after that. Even if ObamaCare is repealed (hopefully), this could still be a worthwhile compromise that addresses some of the issues people above have described. We have always had access to a fair sum of savings and credit but my fear has always been a car accident where more than one of us has sustained injuries that requires hospital care for an extended period of time. Costs can be astronomical very quickly and we could lose our home and every dime of retirement savings (what little is left). We also have two businesses and partners in one of them that could be affected by lawsuits, etc. (Curious – are your kids driving yet? lol) Just something you might want to look into.

  • Lisa Bullock-Hock

    Universal Health Care is the goal. They want to drive private insurance companies out of business and have total control and tax however they want, and have complete control of our lives.

    They are a bunch of theives, but they only take from people who work to buy the votes of the people who don’t. It almost makes me want to stay at home and become a loser too, but my upbringing just won’t let me do it.

    We need a filabuster proof majority in the Senate come Nov. or the democrats will throw a monkey wrench into everything they can. The Dems had that for 2 years. I think it is only fair to let the Republicans have a go.

    The Dems will be like those WI losers who left the state and tried to undermine the vote.

    What jerks.

  • Dave_A

    Because 50%+1 is a quorum at the Federal level.

    Quorum games only work in states where a super-majority is required to convene.

  • RealQuiet

    I am going to highlight this in a diary entry I am going to post. Well done.

  • greyeagle

    I saw my Doc today and we briefly discussed Obamacare. She said it was going to be difficult to find medical care after Obamacare kicked it. A lot of Docs are simply going to retire rather than have a bunch of bureaucrats tell them how to take care of their patients. One thing we are likely to see is an increase in Cancer death rates. They changed the mammogram screen guidelines and PSA. The other types of cancer treatment will simply be denied if a patient is age 70 or older. We must repeal this nightmare of a law before it totally destroys the healthcare system in the US.

  • APA Guy

    Your diary is terrific as well…rec’d highly.