The startling truth about Obamacare from personal experience.

I'm a liberal but I'm here to set the record straight, Obamacare is absolutely horrible. If you don't believe me, just keep reading!

Since being laid off last March due to the slowdown in the oil field and the pandemic I have been on the Affordable Care act. I got my coverage through healthcare.gov during special enrollment because of losing my employment.

My premium is a whopping - $1233.19 per month!!!

I mean after my tax credit of $1311 it's free... but still. 14,798 thousand a year, damn! that's a lot, even if I'm not paying for it.

My employer-based medical care only came to $6132 a year... so that truly is a shit load more expensive! 

Of course, that doesn't count the $14K additional that was my employer's portion that comes to $20,132 a year. Wait.... hmmm, okay so the ACA is actually a fuckload cheaper... but you know it is shitty, shitty coverage right!

I won't get to keep my doctor... oh wait, my doctor is on the plan. Well, she moved when the economy crashed, so I'll go ahead and blame Obama for that! It is an HMO though, so I do have to get my doctor's referral to see specialists and you know those Co-pays will eat my lunch! 

Except, I got a silver plan through the marketplace with BCBS. With two $5 Primary Care Physician visits before any larger co-pays kick in. And it's a 30% co-pay after that until my deductible is met. The estimate my out of pocket costs for the entire year at $1039 dollars. That is outrageous uh'm actually kind of incredible. Hmmm... but the prescription coverage must really suck!

I got 7 prescriptions today - I bet I got hosed! I bet I'm broke after this! I've never needed this many prescriptions in my life. I blame 2020...

1. Losartan HCTZ for my Blood pressure cost $302.89 before insurance - $0 after
2. Omnaprozale for Acid Reflux cost $194.89 before insurance - $0 after
3. Amocx-Clav for an Ear Infection $78.99 before insurance - $0 after
4. Escitalopram for for depression $159.99 before insurnce - $0 after
5. Fluticasone for Allergies 76.99 before insurance - $0 after
6. D-Amphetamine (Generic Adderall) for ADHD $194.99 before insurance - $10 after
7. Ofloxacin - also for ear infection $158.99 before insurance = $10 after

So, let's see... I paid $20 for prescriptions totaling $1,167.73!!! That is fucking horrible amazing. Hmmm, this isn't proving what I hoped to prove. 

My wife is getting surgery on a cyst next week, if we hadn't already met our deductible I bet we'd get hosed!

Okay, but this wouldn't work for everyone... if we covered everyone it would be bad for the country right. That's what they keep telling us, so it must be true. So they estimate that medicare for all would run around $3.2-$3.4 trillion a year. Well, damn... we can't afford that! I mean even if it helps my family that is a horrible amount to add to the countries healthcare costs. Shit. See I was right! Obamacare, and by extension Medicare for all would be a disaster even if it covered everyone.

So I'll go on record as saying it is a really, really, ba.... wait, you know what, let me check something out. Be right back!

<Pretend your listening to elevator music here>

Hmmm, it seems that in 2018 medical health spending was $3.6 trillion and expected to grow 5.4% each year until it hits 6.2 trillion in 2028.

• Medicare spending grew 6.4% to $750.2 billion in 2018 or 21 percent of total NHE.
• Medicaid spending grew 3.0% to $597.4 billion in 2018 or 16 percent of total NHE.
• Private health insurance spending grew 5.8% to $1,243.0 billion in 2018 or 34 percent of total NHE.
• Out of pocket spending grew 2.8% to $375.6 billion in 2018 or 10 percent of total NHE.
• Hospital expenditures grew 4.5% to $1,191.8 billion in 2018, slower than the 4.7% growth in 2017.
• Physician and clinical services expenditures grew 4.1% to $725.6 billion in 2018, a slower growth than the 4.7% in 2017.
• Prescription drug spending increased by 2.5% to $335.0 billion in 2018, faster than the 1.4% growth in 2017.
• The largest shares of total health spending were sponsored by the federal government (28.3 percent) and the households (28.4 percent). The private business share of health spending accounted for 19.9 percent of total health care spending, state and local governments accounted for 16.5 percent, and other private revenues accounted for 6.9 percent.

Gosh... hmm... I gotta rethink this whole thing!

I got it... I know why the ACA sucks... I am paying $50.44 a month for Dental. Fucking dental! That's where they get you!

In All Seriousness when I hear people say the ACA was too expensive I have to wonder the following things.

• Did they actually try to get it from healthcare.gov?
• Healthcare.gov is the only legitimate place to apply in most states.
• There are many scammers vaguely claiming to be ACA plans that are not actually ACA plans.
• Did they understand how the tax credit works? You don't pay it back unless you misrepresent your income.
• Trump's attacks on Obamacare are completely unfounded. He has promised to give us a new plan in "two weeks" literally for months, and nothing has been presented! 

For the record, this is my actual experience with the ACA. I am not paid to represent the ACA. I am just someone using it who is really tired of how it is portrayed, especially by people who are not on it and are only going by what they have heard and have never visited healthcare.gov even once to see what the truth is! I used my prescription benefit for the first time today, and that inspired this blog.

The Cost of Universal healthcare... it's not what you think.

I'm not a math whiz. Not be a long shot.... feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Universal healthcare. $3.2 trillion a year. Big ass scary sounding number. Even scarier when they call it $32 Trillion over 10 years.

A trillion has 12 zeroes, so...written out as a big scary number $3.2 Trillion is $3,200,000,000,000

Mind officially boggled.

Okay... pack it in... that's a shit ton of money, no frickin' way we can afford that kind of cash grab.

You know what, just for shits and giggles, lets run some numbers. Big numbers... Im'a use a calculator.

There are approximately 170 million taxpayers... but about 76 million of them wont pay any federal income tax so that leaves about 94 million actually paying taxes.

That looks like this $94,000,000.

Should be a simple matter of dividing $3.2 Trillion by $94 million... but you know what, I feel like adding another .1 trillion, just in case... and I'll subtract 4 million, once again... just in case.

So $3,300,000,000,000/90,000,000 = $36.6K

Jebus! Holy shit, they are right. That is a literal shit ton of money. DAMN! I do hate when conservatives are right. I gotta be missing something here...

Hmmm, my employer paid $24K in premiums for me and my family last year. (I had a great employer by the way, almost no one pays for the employee and the family.) I paid an additional $8k in prescriptions, co-pays and things that were not covered (but I'd assume most have a forth of that), then I also paid about $1500 into Medicare.

Nope... anyway I look at it this shit is more expensive. It would be nice to cover everyone and all but I'll be in the hole about $8k-$10k more. That would seriously suck ass (actually I wouldn't care if I paid more and it covered everyone - righteous indignation and cussing is for illustrative purposes only).

If only we had a progressive tax system in this country.

Wait... we do have a progressive tax system. Awesome, almost forgot.

Okay... so this is going to be hard to explain. The top 10% of earners pay 71% of the taxes collected in this country. This does not mean that that pay 71% income tax, it means they make so much money that even paying a lower tax rate then the rest of us they account for a bigger share of the revenue collected. So don't stress about their burden. They can afford it, I promise.

It would be pretty safe to assume like most of our taxes this would be a progressive tax. It would actually cost most of us a lot less. Even if the middle class portion was 30% of that cost we'd all be seeing savings and everyone would be covered. 

Think about what that means. Right now people without insurance can't afford to get preventative treatment. Some will wait until a problem can't be ignored anymore. Then the go to an emergency room for care. Something that could have been treated or prevented now costs thousands of dollars. That money will never be paid back and that cost gets spread out to the rest of us.

By the way, in 2016 we spent $3.4 Trillion on medical expenses in this country. It was slated to increase in both 2017 and 2018, but I can't find newer figures. If the conservative's number of $3.2 trillion a year hold true that's a saving of $2 trillion per decade. Just sayin'.

We are paying more and getting less right now. It's time for a change.