NYT and AP: How the Affordable Care Act actually affects people

[kpete]

NYT and AP: How the Affordable Care Act actually affects people
by Joan McCarter
Mon Feb 07, 2011 at 06:48:03 AM PST
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/2/7/941218/-NYT-and-AP:-How-the-Affordable-Care-Act-actually-affects-people

For example, Hillary St. Pierre, a 28-year-old former registered nurse who has Hodgkin’s lymphoma, had expected to reach her insurance plan’s $2 million limit this year. Under the new law, the cap was eliminated when the policy she gets through her husband’s employer was renewed this year.

Ms. St. Pierre, who has already come close once before to losing her coverage because she had reached the plan’s maximum, says she does not know what she will do if the cap is reinstated. “I will be forced to stop treatment or to alter my treatment,” Ms. St. Pierre, who lives in Charlestown, N.H., with her husband and son, said in an e-mail. “I will find a way to continue and survive, but who is going to pay?”

As judges and lawmakers debate the fate of the new health care law, patients like Ms. St. Pierre or Alex Ell, a 22-year-old with hemophilia who lives in Portland, Ore., fear losing one of the law’s key protections. Like Ms. St. Pierre, Mr. Ell expected to reach the limits of his coverage this year if the law had not passed. In 2010, the bill for the clotting factor medicine he needs was $800,000, and his policy has a $1.5 million cap. “It is a close call,” he said.

........

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/02/business/02insure.html

[bvar22]

1. The Democratic Party Leadership has really fumbled the ball here.

They have let the Republicans WIN the national perception.
The fact is that the HCR has helped a small number of upper middle class people who could afford the Buy In.

The Democratic Party should be marching each one across the National Stage gratefully thanking the Democratic Party for helping them, and testifying that The Republican Party want to deny them their benefits.

[MisterP]

2. the good news is, we don't need the individual mandate for any of these, so out it can go! nt

[stevenleser]

3. Yeah, and if you believe the Repugs will stop at that modification if the law is deemed

unconstitutional, I have a few bridges here in NYC I would like to sell you.

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

4. Yep. They want that mandate badly! They don't want it when it's being proposed by Obama/Democrats!

But best believe: they want it!

More money in the pockets of the insurance companies? Of course there's a deafening silence coming from big insurance. They LOVE the individual mandate! Love it!

So much for Obama being bad for business... :rolling eyes:

[eridani]

5. Unfortunately, it affects a very small number of people

That's why the Repigs can get away with lying about it--not enough real world experience out there to contradict their lies.

Dems are doing the usual stupid thing--fighting back with lists of microconstituencies,charts and graphs. Too bad that most voters don't give a shit about those things--they vote on values.

[zipplewrath]

6. Exactly

Huge numbers of people are struggling with all of the same issues they struggled with 2 years ago. And the future looks as uncertain for them as ever. WH predictions are still for 6%+ increases in health care costs over the foreseeable future. People will experience some increases in health insurance costs because of the demands of HCR. Unions will be modifying their contracts to avoid the Cadillac tax. The vast majority never approach annual, or lifetime limits on their policies. The vast majority aren't carrying their 26 year old kids on their policies. Large numbers already had preventitive care covered at 100%. And many that would have been most immediately impacted, have had their employers given waivers for several years.

I ask folks all the time what the direct impact on them has been. Virtually no one knows, and the few that do aren't particularly impressed.