Went to the ACA site to get an idea of my cost for affordable healthcare.

I make 14k a year. I'm almost 41 and have a 19yo son. After the ACA showed me what I'd be paying, my jaw dropped at the lack of help or anything available. So I decided to take my same information and do a 'let's see what...' with 3 other salaries: 57k/yr, 19k/yr, my 14k a year and 5k a year (because I made 5k last year due to being out for surgery and other reasons).

Poverty levels of 100 to 400% are who get the subsidies.
Keep this in mind.

Here are the pics. I hope my chicken scratch writing on each makes sense. I'm starting with 57k a year and going down to 5k.

hope it will work. I can't use the uploader here, it just gives a tiny black box with an x in it. smh.

i337.photobucket.com...

i337.photobucket.com...

i337.photobucket.com...

i337.photobucket.com...




So as you see, the 57k a year me would be well in the 'high end' of the poverty range and can get help. A tax credit of about 850 dollars.

The 19k a year me would be still in the lower end of the poverty range and only has to pay almost 4oo dollars a year for insurance. Plus that me would get a 5900$ a year tax credit subsidy.

The actual 14k a year me (hi guys n gals!) is NOT in the poverty range period and has to pay $6350 something a year which is 43% of my yearly income. Zero subsidy. No help. I make far too much to be considered poverty or need help. OH WOW REALLY?????? not in the poverty range. where's my lamborghini then since Im so rich?

then the 5k a year me, this is the best yet. ready? Same 6k a year required which is 83% of yearly income (um, govt, y u no add right, that's OVER 100% of this me's yearly income), NO aid period because obviously that's the 1%... i can't even go on. It sickens me.

but here's the rotten proof that nope, the less you make, the more you're screwed. Zero help. I get to pay 43% of my yearly income with NO help period. NONE. Zero. that's why I'm not getting any insurance this year. I may get some cheap dental because I have a tooth genetic issue and some are getting really bad and they hurt. But still. I'll pay that stupid fine for the health insurance. 97 dollars is far less bank killing than almost half of my yearly income. I live in Indiana too. No medicaid thing HERE. They nope'd that.

thanks but NO THANKS, ''affordable'' health care my patootie.

WOW! Thanks for sharing that. That whole hopey changey thing really sucks for the people on the bottom.

Wait...as a starving college student, I am on the bott.....Errr... HEY! I see what he did there, and it's not nice.

Make enough to get taxed hard as middle class, make enough to be a political donor and pay far less...OR ....make very little and Uncle will make sure you keep even less in the future.

What a swell fella. We'll all be needing that medical coverage for the stress related health issues in the coming years.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I was so curious, I just had to see what would happen if I made certain amounts a year. I got tired of seeing people being so for/against and just talking and talking about how the poor get so much help and stuff and I was like 'let's see if this is true'

it is not true. Proof is in the pictures right up there. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around this. Now either that page on the ACA site is jacked up and wrong (and I'm SURE a few folk on here will try and point that out to me) but I'm really truly doubting it. Too many yelp on how unaffordable 'affordable' really is; and THIS just shows how huge that 'un' in 'affordable' really is.

Or the 'fair' scale too.
fair.
I wish I made 57k a year. To me, that's RICH, okay.

reply to post by sarra1833

That's great to see! I still have all the raw data from Healthcare.gov converted to an access DB and Excel pivot tables but those are missing the credit/income variable which makes the difference, as you showed there, between paying almost nothing and paying half your income to have nothing left in life at all.

What a total mess...

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


I honestly hope this will get the attention it NEEDS because people NEED to see these pictures. They can even run the tests themselves if they want.

the ACA website links to this: kff.org...

And that's what I used. Anyone can put in their info and change their income and hit submit and it will show them the new amounts. It's really sad. Kid and I barely eat as it IS - but we'll have healthcare we never need to use! OH FUN.

I feel your pain. The same thing happened to me when I went in to take a look see at how much of a "bargain" I would be getting. After my initial income input, I tried other amounts just like you did. Same results with a few dollars difference here and there... when I say a few dollars, I mean $20 - $30 no more.

I would NOT be getting a subsidy. As a matter of fact, the quote was SO FAR out of my affordability level all I could do was look at the screen, say WTF? and laugh. Literally.

No subsidy for me and a quote of over $1,000 a month. If I could afford that, I would have had health insurance 10 years ago.

What Obama and his damnable Obamacare fail to realize is that most people who don't have insurance, don't have it... not because they don't want it. They simply can't afford it. Putting the same price tag (and higher) on the same plans that were available Pre-Damnthenationcare, doesn't make it any more affordable. It's just that simple. There are some who have benefited from getting on "expanded medicaid" in some states.... everyone else just has to deal with this shiite.

Angry doesn't even begin to cover it. I don't like being pissed on and told it's raining.

I hope you find a viable option soon OP. A lot of us are right there with you.

ETA - My quotes were for me and one child.

reply to post by Kangaruex4Ewe


Like everything you just said, I was nodding while reading and going 'this', 'this', 'all my this' .... I feel your pain and rage and ... it's like we're betrayed. Totally fully betrayed. I can't even.

I don't even know how much 'better' it'd be if my Indiana did the medicaid. Would it save me a few cents? Ten dollars? Even a hundred dollars is laughable when you look at the whole picture. How do they expect people to do this?

oh yeah, give up your mobile phones and cable. I have a 20 dollar 2 year old pay as you go net ten craptastic phone which i found a website on line where I get 1000 min a month for 20 dollars. score on that deal. And I got rid of cable tv in the last quarter of 2010 because it's rubbish. The ONLY entertainment I have is this 25 dollar a month internet on a 5 year old ready to die broken laptop that barely runs. I dont have a car, period. dont even have a bike. all my income goes to rent, electric, (supposed to have) gas, and then the water, sewer, garbage and what's left, food. we're some skinny people in this house, let me assure you. I have nothing to give up. we didn't even have heat this winter because i couldn't afford the gas bill. they wanted 210 dollars down and i was broke. so we used space heaters. and it got to 20 below. and our pipes and potty froze for 5 days. BUT I CAN AFFORD OBAMACARE APPARENTLY.

ugh.

That is what happened to me when I plugged in my information alone. Thankfully we have my husbands income and insurance through his job which is better than anything you could get from Obama care. Unless you got the platinum plan.

The people who fall into that category are the people who are supposed to be covered by expanded medicaid, however not all states expanded medicaid so those people got screwed.

I still find it funny that I am signed up in California even though I moved to Montana and got married. I didn't sign myself up either. They just sent me all the information telling me who my new Dr. was how much I would be paying for prescriptions, the whole works. All the patients that went to a sliding fee scale clinic that I used to go to, got enrolled based off of the information they had on file. Actually the more I think about it, the more it frightens me.

Great info. You should post this everywhere. Get the news in on it. Get Alex Jones - even if you don't like him, he will spread the word. Rush too.

I'm sure you can get other coverage way cheaper than these rates.. this is insane. It's just a government power ply for more control to move us into a full dictatorship. I'm surprised no one has put a bullet in the a-holes head yet.

reply to post by JohnPhoenix


Ooooooh i never thought of that! Do you know where I can get their contact information by chance? This would be GOLDEN.

I would post it anywhere you could, I don't know much about reddit but it seems like a lot of things go viral from there.

reply to post by sarra1833


I hear you. The problem is... the people making the laws HAVE NO CLUE (EVER) of what it is like to live on a shoestring budget, live paycheck to paycheck while praying nothing breaks in the meantime, going without dinner at times so your children can eat better, putting off the electric bill until it's double the amount because someone got sick and missed 1 day of work, or coming home after working a 60 hour week to find your water has been shut off because it was one day until payday.

THEY HAVE NO CLUE

And that is why they say the stupid shiite they do about giving up this and that, or you can afford it if you try hard enough, etc. They were born rich and they will die the same way. They have no compassion for the working men and women that make this world go around. They actually believe that someone should easily be able to afford a $1,000 a month premium if they are "trying hard enough", because they just sit back and rake it in hand over fist.

They will never have a clue... because they have never had to.

reply to post by calstorm


i know nothing about reddit but i also at one point knew nothing about ATS and facebook etc. I'm going to go check it out and get it going on there.
spreading the word is a good thing to do.

reply to post by Kangaruex4Ewe


I completely believe that every single person running for any seat in the government MUST live the lifestyle of the min wage worker at 20 hours a week and NOT have access to any of their bank accounts, etc., and do so for 6 months to a year. REQUIRED else they can not run, period.

They need to find a place to live, balance their bills, food, health, etc; even better if they had a child (childcare costs, anyone? daycare, etc?) I think that would open a LOT of eyes FAST and things would change even faster. If they can live a year and walk a year in the have not's shoes, they'd no doubt fix a lot of things. The ones who would then get into office and turn a blind eye, would lose their seat/position after one warning. That year long life will NOT fade just because they get their 250k a year job. And I think they'd have to do a 'refresher course walk' when reelection time grows near. Another 3 to 6 months. Just to see how things are working out for the 'have nots'.

reply to post by sarra1833


That would be an awesome idea I think. I have often thought that they should not be paid for the job they do either. Why? They are there to make things better for their people, to solve problems, etc. Like any volunteer/philanthropic cause, it should be done because YOU THINK you are the best man/woman for the job, because YOU CARE about your friends/neighbors/country, and because YOU FEEL like you can make a positive difference in your community/state. Period. There are many fine folks willing to do what both of us suggest, but they don't get the chance because they don't have the money to even begin running for any elected office above maybe mayor.

If you have someone who believes his/her cause is just, they would jump at the chance to do it without pay and without the added "kickbacks" they all get. Now we have only those who want the money, the kickbacks, and the power/prestige that comes with the position. As long as we have that... nothing will change IMO.

How do you not qualify for Medicaid?

I just looked it up and do think you're eligible. So look at a family of two at provided link, it's over $15k and still considered poverty line.

Link

reply to post by Domo1


She lives in a state that did not expand medicaid.

reply to post by calstorm


Precisely. It's a sad shame but the truth of it.
I just had someone argue with me on another site saying that my information was false and just there to mislead people. Um.
it's from the ACA website itself. The subsidy calculator may be on a different site; but it is linked from the ACA site, not in fine print, but straight off the site itself in the middle of some paragraphs.

Some people just don't want to see the facts even when it's 100% right there on the official bonafide site.

reply to post by sarra1833


Part of my job is enrolling people in "ObamaCare" health plans. Your screen-shots and observations are 100% spot-on, Sarra. This law brings people LITERALLY to tears... tears of JOY, tears of SADNESS and tears of ANGER..depending on their income and healthcare needs.

What the calculator isn't showing is that the closer to poverty level you are, without reaching it, the lower the deductible. The government will pay almost all of your premium and 100% of your deductible if you/your family are between 100% and 250% of the Federal Poverty Level. And, conversely, if you earn over 250% of the FPL, you must add the $6,350 Silver plan out-of-pocket deductible to your premium to arrive at the overall potential annual cost of the plan.

To see all the working parts, enter your basic information (age/income/state/county) at www.ValuePenguin.com... .

I'm still amazed to this day at how flexible our tax-code is for those who have the resources and/or skills to artificially lower their taxable income to levels that are just a hair above the Federal Poverty Level. Families living in million dollar homes whose Adjusted Gross Income (AGI = line 37 of IRS Form 1040) is just above the FPL, thanks to "creative" accounting that's 100% legal.
-cwm

reply to post by carewemust


See, I'm NOT between 100 and 400.

I'm at what was it, 94%? So I get no help. And my state doesn't expand on medicaid I was on medicaid for a few years til my son turned 19 then it ended on his bday last year. Of course Ithen lived in Illinois and moved to Indiana here the next month (November).

What do we do who are below the poverty level because we're too poor to be considered poverty (?????????) level yet can't get medicaid? Are we the reason the fine is so low for now so we can at least afford that and not be in serious trouble? I can do the fine. I could do insurance IF it was like 50 to 100 a month for my son and myself. Anything over that is too too much.