an insurance update, and the election

Here is an article from the New England Journal of Medicine about what happens to Americans who do not have medical insurance.

The author states that many of his clinic's uninsured patients do not understand that under the Affordable Care Act, they might be able to get insurance. All that they have heard is that they will be fined for not having insurance, and the opponents of the ACA have seen to it that they do not hear the other part: the subsidies to help low-income people pay for it – sufficient subsidies for many people among the "working poor" to entirely pay the premium.

That is, unless they fall in the “Medicaid Gap.” The intent of the ACA was that for persons who are below the poverty line, the states would expand Medicaid (with financial support from the federal government) to cover them. But many “Red State” governments have refused to do so, leaving lots of their citizens without any coverage. For example, in Mississippi, a single adult's monthly income must be under $403 a month to be eligible for Medicaid ($4,836/year). For a couple: $542/month. The poverty line is $11,490 a year for one person, $15,510 for a couple. A lot of people fall in that gap, and even with the ACA, they will continue to be uninsured. But they must blame their state government for that, not “Obamacare.” Also, they could blame the Supreme Court: their ruling overturned the original requirement in the ACA that the states expand Medicaid to include everyone below the poverty line.


As for me and my wife, it turns out that we will not need the Health Care Marketplace after all. To their credit, my wife's employer, the Kohl's Corporation, has revamped their medical insurance, and we have now registered for coverage beginning January 2014. It is better coverage than our Blue Cross policy at a discount of about $200 a month from what we are currently paying.

Where the ACA enters into this is the fact that we do not have to worry about insurance and pre-existing conditions if my wife loses her job – a constant possibility in retail.

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As for the upcoming election, we are now receiving a flyer from “Americans for Prosperity” in each day's mail. Yesterday's compared our town to Detroit, insinuating that we are on the fast track to a similar bankruptcy and ruin.

I worked in another political campaign several years ago, and I know how much it costs to send a bulk mailing to the voters of our town – about $4,000. Every day. When in past city elections, that was how much most of the candidates spent for the whole campaign.

And that is not counting the phone banks, the door-to-door canvassing, the advertising....

We are hearing a lot from the AFP, and almost nothing from the other candidates – their voices are being drowned out. And that is the plan.