By: Katherine Rosario, Communications Deputy at Heritage Action
Our first reaction when we got the letter: I was so enraged and so was Jim. And we had to just step back from it and just process it and look at what’s really going on in this country. – Vicki White, Alabama
After nearly 10 years with the individual “blue” plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama, with a premium of $402 per month and a $5,000 out of pocket deductible, Vicki and Jim White received a letter in the mail that infuriated them. They are a hardworking, responsible, healthy couple, so they chose a health insurance plan with a higher deductible, and were putting money in a health savings account.
Previously a small business owner, Vicki is the office manager at a physical therapy clinic. Her husband, Jim, is a high school math teacher and coach. They are conservative to the core and suspected from the inception of the Affordable Care Act that it wasn’t going to be good for the country or America’s healthcare system. But they weren’t prepared for the massive blow Obamacare would be to them personally or how this letter would make them feel. When you hear how much Obamacare changed things for them, you’ll understand why.
The letter from Blue Cross Blue Shield notified them that under Obamacare, their insurance premium would leap from $402 per month to $1,380.28 per month – roughly a 344 percent increase – if they want coverage comparable to their current plan. This 13 hundred dollar “gold” plan has a $6,000 out of pocket deductible.
So they went online in search of a plan that was more comparable in terms of cost. The cheapest plan they could get from Blue Cross Blue Shield is the “bronze” plan, which has a premium of $861 per month and an out of pocket deductible of $12,600. This means, even if they purchased the cheapest plan available to them, they’d have to spend nearly $23 thousand in one year “before a dime would be paid.”
It’s no wonder Vicki added:
We had the understanding that this whole orchestration of the quote unquote Affordable Care Act was to push the populous into a single payer system, a government controlled system, to ultimately control every facet of your life.
These concerns are not unfounded. As the law has unfolded, it has become painfully clear that the Affordable Care Act is not about helping people get affordable health care. In most states, insurance on the Obamacare health exchanges will cost more than existing insurance according to Heritage research.
Obamacare is about government controlling the intimate details of our lives, and in many cases, it may mean individuals are forced to violate their conscience.
Vicki’s concerns are serious and extend beyond health care to privacy and the very nature of what it means to live in America:
Once the government has your health care in the palm of their hand, they can jerk the strings on you and you will jump.
I’m involved in the medical community here, and there are HIPPA laws in place to protect privacy. The Affordable Care Act – that’s a misnomer if I ever heard one – this law is going to expose every aspect of your medical history. God only knows who is going to abuse that information. There is no accountability for anyone in the Obama administration at any level.
The Heritage Foundation recently interviewed Dr. Ben Carson at the Values Voter Summit, and he reminded us of the philosophy of Vladimir Lenin, if you can control health care “that’s they keystone to creating a socialist society.”
This story – and the millions of other stories like this one – would have been different if conservatives’ warnings had been heeded, and if the Affordable Care Act had been defunded and repealed. Tragically, leftists in government were more concerned with saving face and protecting Mr. Obama’s legacy than with listening to the voices of their constituents.
But for the sake of Jim, Vicki, and millions of other Americans being harmed by Obamacare, conservatives are going to continue to fight this unaffordable, unworkable law until it is defeated.
(H/t Heritage Action)
Follow Katherine Rosario on Twitter @KathMaryRosario
