A good Pennsylvania reader made a kind donation to NR’s ongoing webathon, and we began to engage in a little exchange of e-mails, which got into sharing about family, and included this, from him, about what happens to real people courtesy of Obamacare (no edits):
My older daughter, who is 28, married with 2 children, Her husband is in optometry school and she works three jobs. They have a bunch of loans and I pay their rent. They have refused to take food stamps or anything else from the government.
They went on the O’care website because their private insurance was going to go from $600 to $1000 per month. They were hoping to get a plan that would allow them to keep their pediatrician and her OB-GYN and thought they would qualify for a subsidy that would make it affordable.
Instead, they were directed to Medicaid. None of her doctors take Medicaid. My daughter spoke to a supervisor who kept telling her what she didn’t make enough to qualify for an insurance plan and all that the federal government was doing for them. No matter how many times my daughter said she did not want Medicaid and was willing to pay for private insurance, the supervisor kept telling her all about how much the federal government was doing for her and said she had to take Medicaid.
In six months my son in law graduates and I am hopeful he will be able to find decent insurance where he works. In the meantime he and my daughter are scrambling.