I just got an email from Excellus Blue Cross/Blue Shield with a link to this story on BarackObama.com about one of their subscribers:
As a small business owner, I buy health insurance for myself and my family on my own. And the rates have just been going up and up and up with no end in sight, especially over the past few years. Take last year, for instance: for my family, I was paying more than $800 per month just in premiums. And that’s with a sky-high deductible. At some point, I just said enough of this. I can’t pay anymore.
So, when the marketplace opened in New York last fall, I checked out my options. The whole thing was really easy, and the person assisting me was incredibly helpful. I signed my family up, and as of January 1st, I am saving a whopping $500 per month in premiums. And my deductible is almost a third of what it was just a few weeks ago.
There’s no two ways about it: Saving a fortune on health coverage is going to make a huge difference in what I do. For starters, I’ll be able to put more into my new business.
Look, I was skeptical at first. Here in New York, I think we’re born skeptical. But I just don’t understand why a person would be against giving people a chance to get decent coverage at a good rate. Now, I tell my friends that they need to stop listening to the back and forth on the news and just go and check it out for themselves. It’s worth a shot.
This is what winning looks like: an insurance company sending every subscriber a link to OFA’s site.
Baud
CNN had a similar story up recently.
Villago Delenda Est
This encompasses the doom of the GOP.
They’re screwed, and they know it.
The winners, of course, are the American people.
Davis X. Machina
The goal is to turn as many things as possible into positional/Veblen goods, things that have value not because they’re valuable per se, but because they’re better than the (often non-existent) alternative.
If I’ve got objectively crap insurance — expensive, rescindable, with ridiculous caps and co-pays and deductables — but you have no coverage at all, one glance at you tells me my objectively crap insurance is relatively good — and so I feel the appropriate gratitude towards my insurance company, and my employer, instead of seething with rage.
Do that with retirement security, post-secondary education (and increasingly K-12 education) and a host of other things, including being employed at all, and you’ve got the GOP master plan — the largest possible number of forelocks tugged per day.
mai naem mobile
For real now: USA!#1USA#1!USA#1 I got my foam finger out and it wants to screw the GOP!
Shakezula
One of the many things the TEAOP doesn’t want you to know is that repealing Obamacare would be disastrous for payers. And for some reason payers aren’t willing to take a chance on the Republicans’ brilliant replacement law. That doesn’t exist yet.
Belafon
Now, how will this person vote in November?
But I will use this as an example: “I dare you to describe this person as a taker.”
Avi
That’s pretty much my story as well, except that I’m in FL. Premium from $798 to $354, cost-sharing down 30 to 100 percent, and I kept my doctors. I’ve compared my plan to what I’d pay in other states, and I’m doing as well or better than I would elsewhere.
Even Prick Scott couldn’t manage to screw me over. And I’m telling everybody about how great this has been for me.
The only problem I’ve had is that the online payment system doesn’t seem to work (it says I don’t owe money when I actually do), so I have to pay by phone.
cthulhu
I’ve been listening to conservative radio lately, and while they all talk about it, Hannity may well bring Obamacare up the most. He speaks of it as a complete and utter disaster on all levels and it actually makes me smile because such a broad brush tactic is doomed to fail. For example, I think on Tuesday he was pointing out that enrollment was currently at 4.6M versus the 7M the Admin had projected. The horror! Your argument is damn weak if this is the type of data you are using. Frankly, as a listener, I might be impressed by the 4.6M figure itself and might be more encouraged to go check out the exchanges.
Hungry Joe
@Villago Delenda Est: Long-term, yeah, they’re screwed. As for the present and the relatively near future, well, I dunno; people have to be convinced that the ACA actually works. Since so much of the media has become contaminated with toxic stupid and raw, uncut evil, ACA reality will have to percolate, person to person. Meantime the GOP can continue to wreck stuff — maybe beyond repair (see under change, climate).
Mnemosyne
@Belafon:
He’s in New York state, so probably “D.”
Just Some Fuckhead
I dunno who to believe. Mrs. Fuckhead shopped the exchanges in our state and said the deductibles were way too high for the premiums charged.
Chyron HR
You Obots are only steeling my true progressive resolve to kill the bill.
AxelFoley
@Just Some Fuckhead:
There’s a Mrs. Fuckhead?
She has my sympathies…
andy
@Villago Delenda Est: I imagine that’s what they’re starting to roll out this brand of crazy talk:
low-tech cyclist
Because while Republicans love “America,” they hate most actual Americans.
It’s kinda like Lucy from Peanuts saying, “I love humanity – it’s people I can’t stand!”
catclub
@andy: “Now we have these people who are not rational, not logical, they’re nuts.”
Sure sounds like he is talking about the Teahadis.
Just Some Fuckhead
@AxelFoley: I’ll let her know a pathetic Obot was shitting on her 25 year marriage. She’ll get a kick out of that.
Belafon
@low-tech cyclist: They only hate the Americans that prevent them from taking the maximum amount of dollars to heaven to show God.
A Humble Lurker
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Since she’s got someone to join her now?
RSR
Talk about ‘network marketing.’
gelfling545
I’ve had a lot of (insured) family members running into problems with their plans recently – not recent purchases on the exchange, just existing employer or other policies. If your policy says it covers the required services but there is no one in the network with whom you is actually taking patients, is the insurer actually providing the required services? For example: one family member requires mental health services & is covered by Healthy NY. There are 4 specialists listed as participating: one who is in practice but not accepting new patients, 2 who are retired and one who is deceased. How is this providing the service?
aimai
@Just Some Fuckhead: What’s her comparison set? I mean–did you guys previously have good insurance through work? Are you eligible for subsidies? Do you smoke? Do you know the actual cost of your previous health care coverage?
Mnemosyne
@gelfling545:
Get in touch with the NY Department of Insurance and file a complaint. They should be able (and motivated) to help.
Gex
A friend of mine is a mother of two autistic children with a husband who was just laid off from his job. She just announced that her family will be saving $1000/month on their insurance after finding something on the exchanges.
That is fucking amazing. This is why you vote for the sellout Democrats no matter how many purity ponies you want for Christmas.
feebog
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Why are you leaving the shopping to the Mrs.?
Bubblegum Tate
@andy:
Yes, Mr. Inhofe, it is terrible that we in the U.S. have to deal with people like you.
Villago Delenda Est
@catclub:
More projection. Inhofe is one of the stupidest men in the US Senate, which is saying something.
Just Some Fuckhead
@feebog: We divvy up the work based on skill set. She ran the health care benefits for her company for 20 years prior to its closing so she’s best suited for this particular job.
I clean out the catbox.
karen
@low-tech cyclist:
Kind of like how the Domionist Christians LOVE Isarel but hate Jews.
Fellatio Alger
@Just Some Fuckhead: You’re also old. ;)