APNewsBreak: A twist in Obama's health care law

[fauxparadiso]

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free insurance meant for the poor, a twist government number crunchers say they discovered only after the complex bill was signed.

The change would affect early retirees: A married couple could have an annual income of about $64,000 and

Comments

[ubiquitous_a]

Single payer! Boom, baby!

[free_spoons]

So more people than expected can get cheeper health care...and this is a problem?

[thelilyqueen]

Seriously. And, while 64K/year is more than most households make, it'd still go bye-bye real fast - even with insurance - in the event of a major medical crisis like a long fight with cancer or just-short-of-lethal car accident.

[brewsternorth]

Quite. Or even just with more than one resource-draining chronic illness at once.

[roseofjuly]

This. One of the books I finished reading recently was about how the health care crisis that's about to pop off is only partially about the 20% of Americans who are poor and can't afford health insurance - the author related harrowing stories of middle-class U.S. Americans who did have health insurance and still got screwed over because either their insurance companies were jerkasses or the copays were STILL too high for them to pay. People keep making it about being poor. And it should be a LOT about being poor, because it is, but middle-class folks can't afford to get sick either nowadays.

[joshlymanftw]

Wait, you guys DIDN'T want single payer?

[ubiquitous_a]

Yep, our bad. ;p

[makemerun]

Medicare chief actuary Richard Foster says the situation keeps him up at night.

[roseofjuly]

All of this

Like the perception of being ~poor~ is worse than soul-crushing debt due to a medical emergency.

Most of the retired people I know who worked all their lives would gratefully take the money and not give a shit.

[liret]

I still don't really get why every article pointing out a criticism of the health care reform has to make sure we know that it's President Obama's health care law. All his. Because there was no one else involved, ever.

I mean, at this point, is there anyone who is going to be like "Gosh, this health care reform thing, I wonder if Obama was for or against it?"