The affordable care act, and how it has affected you

As the title states, the question is; how has the affordable care act, and how it has affected you.

Im curious to see, I know there are quite a few college students in the community, and I know in my area finding full time work while going to school has became alot harder.

Because of the affordable care act companies & small businesses are cutting full time employees to skim under the tax on them because of their full time status.

I live in a rural area, not much here to begin with as far as employment goes, and this has had a pretty adverse effect on our area.

My employer recently changed my insurance. I work in pretty hazardous conditions, so we have good insurance as a perk. It was free, and now im paying $300 monthly due to the tax my employer has to pay because I work 40+ hours a week. I know $300 is not bad when it comes to insurance but it was free prior to the health care laws, and im not a fan.

We now have to get prescriptions via mail instead of using a pharmacy. I like to keep my money local if Im able, and using the local pharmacy was something I always did, now that im not able thats less money being pumped into our local economy. I hate to see stuff like this, it has done nothing but hurt this area, and I haven't heard very many people who've had good experiences with it.


Share your thoughts and experiences

 

You're shedding light on the negativity of the affordable act. Are there any positives? Better yet, what is an affordable act and why was it put in placed?

 

My insurance rate has gone up for worse care. And yeah, people are also getting cut hours so now they need two jobs instead. Plus if your work gets you insurance, you won't be able to file it off taxes since you're not paying it, so you'll end up paying more taxes probably. And if you're too poor to really afford insurance but required to buy it for like $100/mo or whatever (not free), you have to pay a fine.

There's no real positive other than insurance companies being required to cover pre-existing conditions and people too dumb to buy insurance and make their own choice being forced to do it.


I can tell you though, I'm paying $200+ a month for insurance, and it's cheaper to just go to a doctor that takes cash than pay the co-pay required with my insurance.

And I had to go to the hospital and got hit with a $1000+ bill because the insurance didn't really help, granted it would have cost something like $2000-3000 without the insurance. I had to get stitches, the estimate was $250-400 with insurance covering it. Went and got it done for $110 cash. But is paying $200 a month really worth it for what you get back? Not really, or else insurance businesses wouldn't be profitable, yeah?

There's great cases where people have like 80% insurance, and they go in for a $50,000 operation and have to pay $10,000 out of pocket, and it turns out if they just got the operation done with cash at a hospital it would have been like $10,000 and then they bill the insurance company nowhere close to the $50,000.


If you actually want to help poor people out and everyone out, just take it out the taxes fully already and give 100% coverage to everyone.

 

I'd say a large majority of people here are on their parent's insurance still and I don't think there are many who were uninsured before/after this act so therefore you probably won't get the most insight on this forum. That being said, the act did allow people to stay on their parent's plan for longer.

Here are a couple of interesting videos about the affordable care act and also just on the US' terrible healthcare system in general.

why healthcare is expensive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSjGouBmo0M

if ACA is working: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMuXcuudvCc

 

Well. I'm a pipeliner and the nature of my job means I go from company to company. So I usually don't pick up insurance. So i have to pay the damn fine. I don't like it

Also the insurance that the companies I have worked for have gone up quite a bit

 

And this is why it needs to be tossed in the trash.

I shouldn't have to pay a fine for something I don't want in the first place.

All i've heard about the ACA are prices going up, more negatives than the assumed positives that were to come of this.