Guest AuthorAfter Obamacare’s very rocky implementation, there are more and more Americans signing up for health insurance.
President Obama recently announced that many more people signed up on Obamacare exchanges than expected — over 9 million Americans to be exact.
That confirmed a Gallup Poll that found that close to 10 million people signed up for Obamacare. More than 4 percent of all Americans obtained health insurance for the first time.
But while more Americans may be getting insured under Obamacare, they are paying more out of pocket for such coverage. According to the Commerce Department, consumer spending has climbed $20.4 billion during the last year and Obamacare accounted for $13 billion of that.
That out-of-pocket expense may not only cause financial ruin for those with health coverage, but it might be the factor that causes their death.
While debate continues in Washington and the national media about whether Obamacare will improve Americans’ health care, for the middle class, particularly the self-employed, there’s true economic danger in getting sick today.
Health insurance is not only getting more expensive, but the cost of being sick is soaring. Even with insurance, some sick people incur enormous debt.
On my radio show, I recently interviewed four very dedicated volunteers who run organizations and events dedicated to financially assisting cancer victims.
They raise money to help cancer victims meet expenses not covered by health insurance. They help families fill up gas tanks to drive to treatment centers, pay the heating or utility bills, and even assist them in shopping for food. Unlike many not-for-profit charities, these ladies don’t keep a penny for office and fundraising expenses.
In a nutshell, after listening to them, here’s what’s really wrong with the way our health-care system is evolving: Those receiving Medicaid and Medicare get their transportation and basic living costs covered by the government. Even addicts get free rides for their clinics.
But such expenses, which can add up to thousands of dollars a month, come out of pocket if you are middle class.
During the broadcast, all these great women pointed toward the crushing expense of those who have health coverage. Some sick people had to decide whether to have their electric shut off or give their kids lunch money. Some decided to go to work, even though they were terribly ill.
Some cancer victims died without treatment, even with health insurance, because they could not afford the non-medical costs of being so sick.
One of volunteers, who lost her daughter to a rare form of cancer, described how she made daily trips with her for treatment to Sloan Kettering in New York City. Like many cancer victims suffering from rare forms of the illness, the daughter had to trek hundreds of miles a day to centers where specialists practice.
The mother had to pay for parking, food, co-pays and other expenses. Her daughter’s treatment cost hundreds of dollars a day.
Her experience is becoming, shamefully, more and more common for middle class Americans.
So while the president and those in favor of universal health care tout the initial success of covering more Americans with health insurance, it’s a false reality.
When it comes to those bearing the brunt of paying for Obamacare, more and more are facing financial ruin and even death under the current system.
That’s something that’s not being touted very loudly in Washington these days.
Steven Kurlander blogs at Kurly’s Kommentary (stevenkurlander.com) and writes for Context Florida and The Huffington Post and can be found on Twitter @Kurlykomments. He lives in Monticello, N.Y. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
3 comments
Mark O'Brien
April 23, 2014 at 9:15 am
So what’s your solution to this problem? Or is there a solution?
Mitchell Livingston
April 28, 2014 at 11:48 am
Steve your e-mail announcing this article says in the subject column “Obamacare’s Deadly Costs: There are hidden costs even if you have health coverage”. However in your piece you list an ongoing situation that has existed long before the health care law was implemented.
You say ” But while more Americans may be getting insured under Obamacare, they are paying more out of pocket for such coverage. Then you go on to list ancillary costs incurred with receiving certain health care such as transportation,parking,food, co-pays etc.
I don’t argue the facts behind those costs. Undoubtedly those charges can put a real strain on those who cannot afford to pay them. But to conflate those charges as the fault of the ACA is completely unfair.
This is not a new situation created by the law. Granted the law could have gone much farther to address these costs as many of us wished that it would. However the same people castigating Obamacare, are the same people who want to defund as much social spending as possible. Politically this law was probably the only viable option given our current divided politics and unlimited access to legislators by special interests.
What the law will do is prevent many medical bankruptcies. Prior to the ACA a condition such as cancer would cause an uninsured person to potentially lose everything they have. With insurance even if a person had an annual insurance deductible of $5,000 per year, it would still be far less likely to cause a person to lose everything. As an attorney I am sure you would not recommend bankruptcy as a legal remedy for a debt of that size as a best course of action.
I think your facts are accurate, but your conclusion is specious and baseless.
Charles Stern
April 29, 2014 at 10:42 am
The fallacy here, Steve, is that Obamacare is not health care reform; it’s supposed to be a way to change the insurance marketplace so that more people have access to private insurance, and give national requirements for levels of insurance coverage. So, in effect, nothing at all about the health care delivery system has changed.
We’re still caught in the same negative feedback loop that existed before the ACA was passed: Insurance companies still have to show increasing profits, or else their stock prices tank; Drug companies have to show increasing profits, or their stock prices tank; Medical equipment companies have to show increasing profits, or their stock prices tank. Insurance companies make their money not from providing insurance, but by using the premiums to invest money and use (hopefully, for them) the profits/interest to pay out claims without eroding their capital position. So what do the insurance companies do? They squeeze providers. They squeeze consumers. Doctors have to squeeze more patients in daily, just so that they can pay their ridiculously large support staffs, sacrificing quality of care. Doctors sell their practices to for-profit companies of various kinds, squeezing them even further. We have an increasing army of utilization specialists, health care administrators, and financial analysts making health care decisions based on the built in profit motives that insurance companies and practice owners have.
I don’t have a solution, either, but I know that Obamacare is neither the cause of the problem, nor a solution for it.
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