My Personal Experience with Obamacare

Hello to those of you who actually read my rants,

The last few days have been a whirlwind for me. Not only am I absolutely enraged by some of the statements in the mainstream media, as well as alternative media regarding Iraq, but I also had my first real experience with accessing health care since getting out of the military.

Let me make this more clear; I had my first real experience with getting my family access to health care since leaving the military. I go to the VA for care even though it is a nightmare of a bureaucracy to navigate and can be pretty frustrating. I must admit, I'm willing to put up with it in order to not have to pay out of pocket. However, now I might as well use a private doctor because the Affordable Care Act has required me to insure myself in order to insure my two sons and wife. I found this out because my family's health insurance plan was expiring because of me getting out of the military (Military health insurance lasts for 180 days after you get out). So long story short, I started trying to find health insurance to buy for my family so that they would still be covered (I haven't been with my company long enough to get their insurance, and from what I hear from coworkers, it isn't anything to rejoice about).

Like most veterans, I am a member of USAA. So I did some shopping around before I asked them about health insurance. They are partnered with a company called Assurant Health that offers medical, dental, and vision insurance. Pretty cool; I can handle all my insurance needs (car, house, life, medical, etc.) through USAA. That's the only upside to this story.

So my military health insurance expired on June 28th. As luck would have it, my wife got really sick on the 29th. You might be thinking, "why didn't you just use the new insurance through USAA?" Well, Obamacare won't let you start a new insurance plan without having a "qualifying circumstance." Furthermore, that plan can only start on the 1st of the month. Additionally, as I eluded to before, I had to get a plan for my entire family (including myself) so that my kids and wife could be covered. I literally spent two hours on the phone with the lady explaining to her that I could go to the VA for all my needs and didn't need a policy for myself. "Sorry," she said. "You can't just buy a policy for your kids and wife without you being on it." What's worse, is that I now pay $1,100 a month for a plan for a family of 4 because of my income. Granted, I could've got one for $750 a month that would have had a higher copay and required referrals from a primary care provider, but we agreed that the extra cost would be worth avoiding the headache of going through the HMO system. But still, $750 is a lot of dough. You would think that rate would get you lower copays and not having to go through a primary care provider to be seen by a specialist for an area of your body you already know needs attention from a specialist. If you don't know what I'm talking about, consider this example. If your foot hurts under the HMO system, you have to go to your primary care provider (A general physician) to get a referral to see a podiatrist. This can take time and be a pretty frustrating process. Furthermore, the referral can only be in network and be with a doctor that is pre-approved by your HMO. So in order to have more control over our health care, we opted to pay more per month.

This is great. I grew up in the lower middle class (sometimes in the upper lower class depending on the time period), and now my first chance to get ahead in life and create a better future for my offspring requires that I pay a higher insurance premium because of the "Affordable Care Act." Awesome!

For those of you haven't really done your research on the Affordable Care Act, just know this; there is  no such thing as getting insurance that isn't Obamacare. A relative of mine tried to tell me she got a plan that is only $172 a month and "it isn't Obamacare or anything subsidized." I laughed. The Affordable Care Act governs all insurance policies in the country and if you go out into the "marketplace" on your own as I did, things like your income help determine your premium. Another "tax" on success. Glad I worked my ass off for the past 15 years and did well in college so that I could get a good paying job and have to pay higher insurance premiums. There are new rules that insurance companies, like mine, have to abide by (like when your policy can start, and who has to be on the policy). So just because you have health insurance through your company or with a "private" company that you had before the ACA, that health insurance policy is still governed by the ACA.

My point is this; for me, Obamacare isn't "affordable." And because of the new rules, I had to pay out of pocket for my wife to get seen and get medicine for her illness. But this actually brings me to the next point which I always try to implement into my blog posts, the solution!

So luckily there is a Walgreen's close to our house with a "Minute Clinic." There is a Physician's Assistant (PA) on duty 7 days a week. My wife went there, was diagnosed and given a prescription. Out the door, medicine in hand, total cost $165. Boy was I glad it wasn't more. But it got me thinking. We are pretty healthy people and don't go to the doctor that often; maybe once a year a piece for my wife and I, and two times a year a piece for the kids just for "mandatory" vaccines so they can attend their school. So $1,100 a month times 12 is $13,200. That's a lot of money that I could be putting into their college fund rather than paying for other people's subsidized and much lower insurance premiums. I could give half that amount a month to a nonprofit organization that provides healthcare to underprivileged folks and it would make way more of a difference. Now I know the first thing some of you are going to argue is; "what if they get cancer or tuberculosis?" Well, yeah, I think we should have insurance for that, just like we have car insurance in case we get into a wreck, but it shouldn't cost $1,100 a month, or even $750 a month. If we all paid some sort of "medical catastrophe" insurance, and then only paid the doctor directly when we needed to visit, then health care would be much cheaper for everyone.

For those of you who think health care is a human right; please answer these questions:

1) How do you say that someone has a right to health care at the economic expense of somebody else?

2) If you are entitled to health care because it is your human right; is the doctor's human obligation to treat you?

3) If there were no doctors, should the government force people to go to medical school so that you could receive your human right to health care?

I think nobody should physically or legally inhibit you from getting whatever healthcare you want, but that doesn't mean they should be forced to provide it for you. Doctor's, as well as employers, should have the right to deny services just like you should have the right to do what you want with your own body. It is up to you to find a another party who consents to rendering whatever services you are seeking. Don't try to use the Supreme Court and the Legislative system to require people to pay for something for you that is a personal choice to take (birth control-Hobby Lobby).

This whole issue is just another issue ruining our country. Once people start taking responsibility for themselves and not expecting the government to take money by force and coercion from other people in order to provide services to them, we might head down a better path. And before you try to call me out for being a hypocrite and using a government program (VA healthcare), please know that I would gladly pay for my own healthcare (which I do now anyways even though I am supposedly "entitled" to VA healthcare) if the government totally got out of the healthcare business and started letting Americans govern their own personal lives.

Last note: Many people who I respect have expressed disdain for today's SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) ruling that says businesses don't have to provide birth control due to religious beliefs. This shouldn't even have been spun as a religious issue. No person or business should be required to give anything to an employee except a paycheck for the work they perform. What is wrong with people when they feel so entitled that somebody else owes them something that has nothing to do with their job? People make a choice to have sex and to have kids or not have kids. Unless your job is to have sex with people for a paycheck, then I see no place for birth control to even be involved in the compensation package. And even then, I would say it shouldn't be mandated by the government.

I understand the statement; "Get your beliefs off my body." And I agree. But I say get your beliefs out of my wallet. I shouldn't be able to tell you what to do in your bedroom or with your body and you shouldn't be able to require me to pay for shit you want to put in your body and that you should pay for yourself. Bottom line.

Sorry this blog was more of a rant than a constructive post, but I got really heated today when I learned about how the federal government was making my life way more stressful. I'm making more money than I did in the Marines, but still WAY WAY less than Obama's magic $250K a year number (top of the middle class income earners), yet I still get penalized for climbing the socioeconomic ladder by having to pay higher health care insurance premiums. I hope he doesn't try to pass the "Affordable Car Insurance, or Affordable Renter's Insurance Act." I'll have to start moonlighting just to pay insurance premiums.

Until next time, stay conscious.

Semper Fi,
Chris Bentley