Need some advice in Obamacare debate.

[GoldenThunder]

A good friend of mine who lives down in Georgia is furious that she has to pay a penalty because she can't afford the premium. I'm trying to get her to see the light on this but she being a Trumpanzee is being a little obstinate. Any advice for how I can persuade her that having health insurance is a good thing.

The debate goes like this: I post something to Facebook from Occupy Democrats that says: Never have so many people worked so hard to have their own health insurance taken away ONLY BECAUSE IT WAS GIVEN TO THEM BY A BLACK MAN[/b

My friend replies: No, we can't afford YOUR health insurance, and why should we be made to pay a fine when we can't afford the insurance in the first place ??

I counter: It's the insurance agencies that set the prices on premiums, not the government. Remember Obamacare was once called Romneycare. A plan drawn up by the conservative darlings at the Heritage Foundation in order to keep the fat cats in the insurance industry well fed.. Furthermore, since you live in Georgia where the state legislature has pretty much whacked all of the federal funding that was supposed to go into the ACA expansion. It's not like Obamacare actually exists in your state anyway.

Friend: really? Then why did I get fined $600 and made to pay?

Me: Because having to pay for a major surgery entirely out of pocket is the alternative. If nobody pays, over 250 million Americans are only one catastrophic medical emergency away from losing everything they own.

Friend: So I have to pay a fine for insurance I can't afford, and still have to pay for a catastrophic event out of pocket, BECAUSE I CAN'T AFFORD THE FUCKING PREMIUM. Yeah, that makes sense , sign me up. Can you liberals get any dumber?????

I feel bad for her cause she is my friend and she can't afford the premium. I need some help. How do I convince her that Obamacare is better than the Republican's Tryancare? (Lumping Trump and Ryan together on that one)

[ProfessorGAC]

1. Some Friend

She just asked you if you could get any dumber, and you want to convince her because she is a friend? A friend, who can't understand how insurance actually works and calls YOU dumb?

[Squinch]

7. Yes. The whole exchange is very odd, isn't it?

[LexVegas]

2. Tell her to pull herself up by the bootstraps and earn more money. nt

[Squinch]

6. LOL!!!

[OKNancy]

3. Did she even try to get a subsidy?

We went through the marketplace and if we didn't get the subsidy we couldn't afford it either.
We are not what you would consider poor, but we still got a generous subsidy.
In fact the normal premium would be $925.00 per month. The subsidy covered all of it so we pay nothing.

ETA: my state did not expand Medicaid either.

[Squinch]

4. Has she tried to get the insurance? If her fee is $600 that means her annual income is $24000.

(The fee is 2.5% of annual income.) If this is the case, with subsidies, she SHOULD be able to get an insurance plan for almost no money, if not for free.

She should apply for the coverage and see what the cost is WITH SUBSIDIES.

[GoldenThunder]

5. We used to be co-workers.

And yes, despite her kooky views, I still consider her a good friend.

[ehrnst]

8. Did she fall into the hole between being eligible for Medicare and subsidized premiums?

Georgia was one of the states that refused medicaid expansion. Living in a state with a GOP governor has some dire consequences if you don't make a lot of money. If she is in that hole, it's not the fault of the ACA - it's her state government that refused to offer her medicaid coverage if her income was low enough.

http://www.myajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/after-gop-health-plan-fails-georgia-explores-medicaid-changes/HA7M1NCrZEKuwFVnvtmNnO/

Did she apply for the hardship exemption?

Unfortunately, many of the very cheap, very high deductible catastrophic plans didn't qualify as adequate coverage under the ACA, so a lot of the people who were on them can't get them anymore.

She is no more being "fined" than someone who rents an apartment for $1,200 a month and doesn't receive a mortgage interest tax deduction of $600 a year that a condo owner would.

[MichMary]

9. There are young, healthy people

who really don't need the kind of coverage mandated by the ACA.

My son was one of them. When he went off our group coverage at age 26, we found a BCBS policy designed for young, healthy adults. Coverage only available up to age 30. It didn't cover much, but would have covered him in case of accident/surgery/major illness, etc. Also, very cheap. We were glad to pay it. He never accessed it, because he didn't need it.

Since it wasn't ACA-compliant, it went away, and was replaced by an ACA-compliant policy that covered EVERYTHING--and cost three times as much. He also never used that coverage, so the insurance company was very pleased, and we were out a lot of $$$$.

What I would really love to see is a cafeteria-style plan, where you choose the coverage that suits your particular needs at a given time--less coverage for young single people, more and different coverage for people with families, more and different coverage for old people who are most likely to need it. (I also have no problem with paying more for it at my age. Just seems fair.)

I don't think anyone has ever come up with that idea. Too bad.

[Motownman78]

13. Because you never know what you will need

THAT is why Obamacare had minimum requirements. I have known 25 year old people in perfect health who developed brain tumors.

[MichMary]

14. It can happen

Which is why everyone should have SOME insurance to cover major things, but the odds are very good that it won't happen to someone who is 25 years old. So, they shouldn't have to pay for something that in all likelihood, they will never use.

Odds are very, very good that a person of my age (60+) will need more extensive coverage, and that is why I don't think it's unfair to charge me more.

[alarimer]

10. A lot of people don't seem to understand what insurance even is.

You pay premiums, the company gets money that it invests. If you have to use it, it covers $X for each event. But risks are pooled. The larger the pool, the lower the individual premiums (at least in theory).

All Obamacare did really was set a few rules. Everyone had to have insurance. But the markets determined the premiums, so they made it so the government provided subsidies for those that couldn't afford the full payment. But in order to get people to buy insurance, there was a provision that you would be fined for not having it. (I'm not entirely clear how this worked. I thought it was based on what you reported on your taxes and taken out there. Not like paying a fine for getting a speeding ticket or something.). Obamacare also had rules about what was to be covered, because there used to be a lot of cheap plans out there that covered basically nothing- a real rip-off. It also eliminated the lifetime cap. Tell your friend to imagine life with a chronic illness that doesn't kill you. You might reach that cap in a couple of years, after which you pay all the costs. Not good. Also, insurance companies can't deny those with preexisting conditions (which insurance companies define VERY broadly- like, say, allergies or some other minor thing).

Does she expect not to pay a bill if she gets sick? That is the situation of anyone without insurance. SOMEBODY has to foot the bill. For those unable to pay, the government (in the form of public hospitals) ends up paying anyway. And sometimes we all pay in the form of higher taxes for public health or higher costs for those who are insured.

I am of the opinion that Obamacare did not go far enough. It didn't attempt to control costs in terms of what hospitals, doctors and pharmaceutical companies charge. But tt SLOWED the rise in premiums and increased the number of people covered. There are fewer medical bankruptcies and people who were otherwise uninsurable can now be covered.

The problem on the right (and even for some liberals) seems to be that whatever happens to you is your own fault. You didn't eat right, you drank too much, or smoked. Or whatever. All of those raise risks for certain conditions but they do not guarantee it. Not at all. But health care should be a human right. It is cheaper to care for everyone in the same pool (like Canada's Medicare) and eliminate the overhead associated with insurance companies (for our Medicare overhead is 4% of the cost; with private insurance it is closer to 20%). The other issue is that many people think you can pick and choose what is covered and what isn't. That is a terrible idea because you can never predict what will happen to you. Never, not at any age.

[nikibatts]

11. Tell her to vote to get the GOP out of Congress so the ACA can be fully funded and Insurance Cos

can receive the subsidies and customers they were promised.

[Demsrule86]

12. She doesn't...she can get a waiver.

My niece has one.

[dreamland]

15. Your problem is in trying to explain it

Your friend doesn't want to know how it works. She just wants to not pay the fine. I doubt it she ever had to buy insurance before based on the fact that she can't afford it. You can tell her the fine is because the GOP wants it, that's why they are going to keep a penalty fine for not having insurance instead of calling it a tax penalty, it will cost her more under the proposed plan and she still will not be able afford it- therefore it's not a "liberal" idea. Your friend has already formed her opinion, you cannot help her to understand.