Why is my insurance so f-ing expensive?!
Okay, for anybody thinking the Affordable Care Act actually solved insurance problems in the US for the poor, get this - even though I made only $5,000 last year, my insurance as an employee of the university is $300 a month. If I choose to get the student insurance instead, that's a mere $200 per month....still not affordable. And even though I do qualify for government assistance, should I choose to take that, I would STILL have to pay over $100 a month (I don't remember the exact figure, I looked it up last year). No way would I take government welfare where I'd still have to pay a freaking $150 or something like that per month. Isn't the whole point of welfare supposed to be that it's cheap or free?? And we're talking $5,000 a year here, so arguments that I must be making enough to have to pay more do not apply.
But I don't get it. My bf only pays about $85 a month through his company insurance, while making around $50,000 a year. Employees in my parents' company pay a similar amount. Yet, when I call to check on getting insurance from the company my parents use for their employees, all I could get would be catastrophic insurance for the same kind of price I quoted above ($200-$300) because I'm not an employer. Why the HELL is mine so freaking expensive??? It doesn't go by age or medical history (and my medical history is excellent anyway), mine is just a base rate. $300 for part-time employees, $200 for students, whoever you are. Never mind that part-time employees and students aren't very able to afford those rates.
THIS IS WHY I REMAIN UNINSURED. The only thing the ACA did for me was make the cheap health clinics more expensive! Whereas they used to see uninsured people for a very low fee, often on a sliding scale, since the ACA was passed and everyone was required to get this supposedly "affordable" insurance, the rates at those clinics basically tripled.
I HATE the whole healthcare problem in this country....and the ACA only made it way, way worse. Every step taken to make it any better just winds up somehow screwing everything up even more. I'm pretty sure that trend will continue.
There is NO WAY anyone making as little as $5,000 a year could ever support themselves, they'd have to be getting outside help from some other person. This year I'll make at least twice what I made last year, because I wasn't even working until the fall of 2017. But what does it say when I my rates are so astronomically high even when I only made $5,000?!
So yeah, now I just never get insurance at all, I've always opted to pay the fine for not having any, which is way, way cheaper than the "affordable" insurance. Wth?? Anyone thinking insurance in the US has now been somehow reduced in price for people on the lower end of the financial spectrum is badly fooled.
But I don't get it. My bf only pays about $85 a month through his company insurance, while making around $50,000 a year. Employees in my parents' company pay a similar amount. Yet, when I call to check on getting insurance from the company my parents use for their employees, all I could get would be catastrophic insurance for the same kind of price I quoted above ($200-$300) because I'm not an employer. Why the HELL is mine so freaking expensive??? It doesn't go by age or medical history (and my medical history is excellent anyway), mine is just a base rate. $300 for part-time employees, $200 for students, whoever you are. Never mind that part-time employees and students aren't very able to afford those rates.
THIS IS WHY I REMAIN UNINSURED. The only thing the ACA did for me was make the cheap health clinics more expensive! Whereas they used to see uninsured people for a very low fee, often on a sliding scale, since the ACA was passed and everyone was required to get this supposedly "affordable" insurance, the rates at those clinics basically tripled.
I HATE the whole healthcare problem in this country....and the ACA only made it way, way worse. Every step taken to make it any better just winds up somehow screwing everything up even more. I'm pretty sure that trend will continue.
There is NO WAY anyone making as little as $5,000 a year could ever support themselves, they'd have to be getting outside help from some other person. This year I'll make at least twice what I made last year, because I wasn't even working until the fall of 2017. But what does it say when I my rates are so astronomically high even when I only made $5,000?!
So yeah, now I just never get insurance at all, I've always opted to pay the fine for not having any, which is way, way cheaper than the "affordable" insurance. Wth?? Anyone thinking insurance in the US has now been somehow reduced in price for people on the lower end of the financial spectrum is badly fooled.