Affordable Care Cat
...which is an ADORABLE and very real blog on Tumblr. Go coo at it and then come back here.
This is late-breaking, I know, but I thought in light of the Supreme Court's ruling on the Afforable Care Act, it was apropos to mention the impact said piece of legislation has had on my life in the last 18 months.
As most of you know, I lost my full-time job in April of 2011 and have been picking up part-time gigs and putting in applications ever since. Losing my health insurance was a BIG fucking deal as I depend on daily psych meds to keep me functional. Even the generic versions can be pricey, and on a semi-regular basis they simply stop working and have to be reconfigured by my doctor--which usually entails an office visit. Without insurance I would basically have to weigh my sanity against my bank account's ability to pay upfront for care. I qualified for COBRA coverage but the premiums were over $400/month which is pretty steep for someone living on unemployment checks.
Fortunately, I only had to use the COBRA for a couple months before my father's military retirement health plan finally got its shit together and extended coverage to young adults up to the age of 26. (The extension of adult child coverage is one of the simplest provisions of the ACA, one of the first to go into effect, and a pretty radical transformation in the lives of many of my friends. They were suddenly able to afford to see a therapist/get hormonal birth control/have a goddamn annual physical again for the first time since aging off their parents' insurance after college. And there are literally millions of young adults in this situation.) I got on my parents' insurance, with monthly premiums less than half of what I was paying for COBRA, and was able to keep up with my meds and see the doctor when necessary.
I aged out of the young adult coverage in June of 2012, but once again the ACA stepped in to keep me from falling through the cracks. My pre-existing psych diagnosis qualified me for the state-run "high risk pool", a federally subsidized plan for those who would be priced out of the private insurance market. My premiums are still pretty reasonable, I can afford my meds, and my insurer is expressly prohibited from rescinding my coverage or denying a claim on the basis of my pre-existing condition. When researching my options last winter, I looked at some private-sector plans but was paralyzed by the fear that the rug would be pulled out from under me just when I needed it most.
The ACA isn't perfect. In places, it is a bizarre Frankenstein's monster of committee compromise. I still think we should adopt a single-payer model and ditch the idea of employer-based health care like a moldering banana peel. But the ACA has twice saved me from having to activate my backup plans for getting treatment.....which range from "Plan C: borrow money from parents" to "Plan Z: stumble across the Canadian border, THEN call ambulance".
I know feelings run high about this stuff and ultimately it does come down to personal priorities and ethics. Just. Whichever side of the issue you're own. Please understand the real impact health care reform makes.
This is late-breaking, I know, but I thought in light of the Supreme Court's ruling on the Afforable Care Act, it was apropos to mention the impact said piece of legislation has had on my life in the last 18 months.
As most of you know, I lost my full-time job in April of 2011 and have been picking up part-time gigs and putting in applications ever since. Losing my health insurance was a BIG fucking deal as I depend on daily psych meds to keep me functional. Even the generic versions can be pricey, and on a semi-regular basis they simply stop working and have to be reconfigured by my doctor--which usually entails an office visit. Without insurance I would basically have to weigh my sanity against my bank account's ability to pay upfront for care. I qualified for COBRA coverage but the premiums were over $400/month which is pretty steep for someone living on unemployment checks.
Fortunately, I only had to use the COBRA for a couple months before my father's military retirement health plan finally got its shit together and extended coverage to young adults up to the age of 26. (The extension of adult child coverage is one of the simplest provisions of the ACA, one of the first to go into effect, and a pretty radical transformation in the lives of many of my friends. They were suddenly able to afford to see a therapist/get hormonal birth control/have a goddamn annual physical again for the first time since aging off their parents' insurance after college. And there are literally millions of young adults in this situation.) I got on my parents' insurance, with monthly premiums less than half of what I was paying for COBRA, and was able to keep up with my meds and see the doctor when necessary.
I aged out of the young adult coverage in June of 2012, but once again the ACA stepped in to keep me from falling through the cracks. My pre-existing psych diagnosis qualified me for the state-run "high risk pool", a federally subsidized plan for those who would be priced out of the private insurance market. My premiums are still pretty reasonable, I can afford my meds, and my insurer is expressly prohibited from rescinding my coverage or denying a claim on the basis of my pre-existing condition. When researching my options last winter, I looked at some private-sector plans but was paralyzed by the fear that the rug would be pulled out from under me just when I needed it most.
The ACA isn't perfect. In places, it is a bizarre Frankenstein's monster of committee compromise. I still think we should adopt a single-payer model and ditch the idea of employer-based health care like a moldering banana peel. But the ACA has twice saved me from having to activate my backup plans for getting treatment.....which range from "Plan C: borrow money from parents" to "Plan Z: stumble across the Canadian border, THEN call ambulance".
I know feelings run high about this stuff and ultimately it does come down to personal priorities and ethics. Just. Whichever side of the issue you're own. Please understand the real impact health care reform makes.