(Untitled)

[pixiebelle]

So I spent almost all day Friday calling around for info on Medi-cal. Pardon my language, but it was a clusterfuck. The two numbers listed on the official site under "contact us" don't work. One says "I'm sorry, you're calling from outside our calling area. Goodbye." And the other says "The voicemail box you've reached is full. Goodbye." It's

Comments

[pixiebelle]

A lot of people seem to think all Californians are all rich, but yeah, that's not the case at all. There are a lot of middle-class and poor people here too. There's a lot of poor people actually. And Obamacare is great for some (like me) and not great for others, I won't lie. I don't approve of being forced to get health insurance, especially with how crappy most of them were. But as someone who's not well off right now, California does offer more than most states. I was looking at moving back to Missouri (where I'm from) a few months ago, but when I looked into the health insurance options I'd have there, I decided to stay here a bit longer at least. States had a choice whether to expand Medicaid, and MO chose not to (Medi-Cal is Medicaid by the way). With no income, I'd still be expected to pay $250 a month for insurance. That's appalling for something I'm required to get. Here, even before I qualified for Medicaid, my insurance was going to be $20 a month

[xo_kizzy_xo]

In my state you pay a tax penalty if you don't sign up for it. We have probably one of the more comprehensive programs out there. There are different levels of insurance depending on your income and whether you're single or head of household or married. The cost for the better plans, though..yeech : shudder:

[xo_kizzy_xo]

That said, a lot of people do what you posted and pay the penalty.

[pixiebelle]

There's a penalty if you don't have insurance, and it goes up every year. A lot of people are choosing the penalty as it's cheaper, but it's still wrong. I'm not a fan of that part of the ACA.

And yep, there are very rich areas... I used to live in Orange County and worked in Newport Beach. Very rich. I drove by a Maserati dealership to go grocery shopping and by private jets to get to work. The malls have valet and the stores are ridiculous.... But not everyone lives like that. We have more homeless here than I've seen in my life.

It's still expensive to live here even though minimum wage is only slightly more than Missouri where the cost of living us way less. I belong to communities where people claim to be living in storage units because they can't afford an apartment.

Even Hollywood isn't so glamorous... It's not a place locals really care to go. It's not safe at night, full of homeless people and not at all what people imagine it to be. Now Beverly Hills and Bel Air, that's another story... But Hollywood itself is anything but

[cfchica]

CA is home to one of the poorest areas in the country...the Central Valley. I'm not sure where people get the idea that Ca folk are wealthy; we have one of the highest percentages of working poor in the country....native Californian here who is among the working poor and Medicaid (hopefully temporarily)