My mother is not one to seek attention by complaining, so her recent woeful
Facebook post caught my eye: "The poor get poorer." It diverged from the
more customary stream of inspirational quotes, recipes and snapshots
from her tiny cottage in Pierce County, Wash.
The
post continued: "I just received a notice: 'In order to comply with the
new healthcare law, your current health plan will be discontinued on
December 31, 2013.' Currently my premium is $276 and it is a stretch for
me to cover. The new plan . . . are you ready . . . projected new rate
$415.20. Now I can't afford health insurance."
The
unaffordable ObamaCare-compliant plan that her insurer offered in a
Sept. 26 letter is not what makes my mother's story noteworthy.
Countless individually insured Americans have received such letters;
many are seeing more radical increases in premiums and deductibles.
But
most of these people are still being offered the chance to choose what
health-care insurance they will receive, or to opt out before they are
automatically enrolled in a state program. Not so my mother,Charlene Hopkins,
as I soon discovered when I called after seeing her Facebook
post.
Since she couldn't afford the new plan offered by her insurer, she told me she was eager to explore her new choices under the Affordable Care Act.
Washington Healthplanfinder is one of the better health-exchange sites,
and she was actually able to log on. She entered her personal and
financial data. With efficiency uncommon to the ObamaCare process, the site quickly presented her with a health-care option.
That
is not a typo: There was just one option—at the very affordable monthly
rate of zero. The exchange had determined that my mother was not
eligible to choose to pay for a plan, and so she was slated immediately
for Medicaid. She couldn't believe it was true and held off completing
the application.
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