The House Republican Conference wants to hear your Obamacare horror story. Here's mine.

[FourScore]

Wed Oct 30, 2013 at 07:18 PM PDT
The House Republican Conference wants to hear your Obamacare horror story. Here's mine.
by BigDuck

I got an email from Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Chair, House Republicans, telling me that "Obamacare" is a disaster.

Have you or someone you know lost health care coverage as a result of the President’s health care law? Tell us your story by clicking here. We want to hear if you or someone you know lost insurance as a result of Obamacare because these stories are the reason House Republicans continue focusing on patient-centered reforms not government-centered health care.

She provided a helpful Web site:http://www.gop.gov/yourstory/, and invited me to tell my story. So I did. And so should you!

My story:

My family was on an individual plan with Blue Cross of Texas for almost 10 years. Each year, the premiums went up, sometimes by 10 or 20 percent. The only way we could keep the premiums affordable was to accept higher and higher deductibles, and higher co-pays.
By 2009, even a $10,000 deductible was not enough to keep premiums affordable. We were worried that we would soon not be able to afford health care coverage at all.

I was eligible for coverage on a different Blue Cross plan with my union, but did not sign up because it did not cover my adult children. Starting January of 2010, this union plan was required to cover my adult children because of Obamacare. I signed up.

Our premiums went down by $234 dollars a month, thanks to Obamacare. Our deductible went from Ten Thousand Dollars to One Thousand Dollars, again, thanks to Obamacare. Plus, the new plan covers dental and vision care, which the old plan did not.

Under the new, union sponsored plan, our premiums have not gone up in the past three years. I'm sure that under our old plan, they would have continued going up by 10 or 20 percent each year, as they did during the previous 10 years.

Now the oldest of our daughters is 26, and must seek coverage on her own. Fortunately, she lives in a Democratic state, where the Healthcare Marketplace works.

I want to thank Leader Pelosi, Leader Reid, and President Obama for making it possible to take my family to the doctor when they need it.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/30/1251941/-The-House-Republican-Conference-wants-to-hear-your-Obamacare-horror-story-Here-s-mine

[TlalocW]

1. Mine

Well... It turned me into a NEWT!

(I got better)

TlalocW

[FourScore]

2. But only for Halloween!

[Faux pas]

3. Booyah!

[Canoe52]

4. HaHa, jokes on them...

I just went there and gave them my story.

Summarized:

It took me a few days to get through (state of Washington),
I was unable to get insurance before due to pre-existing condition,
I was able to get a Gold plan for around $200/month.

[Mass]

5. At least, they make clear they are not interested by success stories.

Pretty good sign that their claim they want to help people is just fake.

Bookmarking to send this to a few people who want to tell me that the GOP cares.

My story is simple.

Your previous Republican nominee established the equivalent of Obamacare in MA. Most people, including myself, are happy.

Why are you so intent depriving other people from the same rights.

[SunSeeker]

6. K & R

[Victor_c3]

7. I should get my parents to submit their story

The short version is Obamacare is saving them more money than they expected to save. They thought they'd save $800-900 a month. However, thanks to forced competition in their region, they ended up saving $1200 a month on their premiums. The state exchanges, forced competition, and subsidy are making a huge impact for my family.

[Wounded Bear]

8. But, but, but.......freedom and all that shit....

Where's all that freedom you lost? What about that?

Yeah, that was

[Sheepshank]

9. Perfect!....only one thing to add that may have been the cherry on the top...

"I am a Republican and I hope my representatives fight hard for me to hang onto this little gem instead of trying to dismantle something that is of great benefit to my family"


I would love for the RW idiots to realize they may just be pissing off a large swath of Rep voters by taking away something the voter is enjoying as a benefit to the family.

[Orrex]

10. Page Not Found

Did we DU it already?

[BlueStreak]

12. This link works

http://www.gop.gov/yourstory/

[Orrex]

14. Thanks!

[BlueStreak]

11. I submitted my horror story

Here it is:

What a nightmare !!! I received a notice from Anthem BCBS saying that they were going to discontinue my policy. This had been a wonderful policy with a low, low deductible of just $11,000 for two people. And we've never been sick a day in our lives, so you can imagine how we felt when this policy was discontinued, We were really hoping to continue paying $8000 a year for the privilege of having a policy that had served us so well, although we never actually used it.

So of course I wanted to get on healthcare.gov just as soon as October 1 came around. What a miserable experience. For 16 days of pure hell I couldn't actually use the site very much. What pure torture. Now I know what the people who died on Septermber 11 must have felt like. It was literally like having to endure a Nazi death camp. But I'm not telling you anything you don't know.

Well, I won't waste your time with the details. It turns out the website is actually working pretty well now so you might want to talk more about Benghazi, but I'm not political strategist. When I logged in to see my choices, horror of horrors, there were only two companies competing in my area. And one was Anthem, the same company that had just canceled my policy. Well that was certainly a relief.

So I checked further into the policies offered by Anthem, which had served me so well. It turns out they they have put together a “special” provider network just for the ACA and, just like Ann Coulter says, it includes only doctors who didn't attend American universities. And in particular, it doesn't include any of my doctors. So the nightmare continues.

I went back and re-read the letter from Anthem. Actually they didn't really cancel my policy. What they did is offer to extend it a year if I would fork out even more money, But at least that policy actually has real doctors and hospitals in its network.

So I was about to extend my old plan for more money. But then something made me ask why Anthem simply didn't offer my old plan on the Exchange. Funny story – you'll get a real kick out of this. It turns out that my old policy was a junk policy. There was no cap on my out-of-pocket expenses and they would have terminated me any time that I actually needed to start using the insurance. And I guess that damned Obamacare doesn't let insurance companies to this anymore. Can you believe that? So you can surely understand just how distraught I was.

In the end, there is another company, MDWise, in the Obamacare exchange. I had never heard of them. But I found out they actually are offering an excellent network that includes virtually every provider in my area – yes, even the ones that went to American universities. Indeed, it in includes the Indiana University hospital network, which is tops. Of course, now I have to deal with the complete disaster and nightmare of the application process in order to get a policy that is far superior in every respect to the insurance I had previously, has a maximum out-of-pocket of $1000 and will cost under $200 a month for the two of us combined. What a nightmare this has been. Please feel free to share my horror story with every Republican out there.

[KY5]

13. I submitted my success story and shamed them for threatening my livelihood.

In the box that asked for a YouTube link, I put this:

[Canoe52]

15. K and R