The quiet, life-saving success of the ACA
Published November 21, 2014
by Chris Fitzsimon, NC Policy Watch and NC SPIN panelist, November 20, 2014.
You’d never know it from the overheated political rhetoric of the Right these days, but thousands of people in North Carolina have been signing up for health care coverage since the new enrollment period under the Affordable Care Act began last weekend.
You haven’t heard much about the problems with the healthcare.gov website lately either, the site where people go to review the insurance plans that are offered, to find out if they are eligible for a subsidy to help them pay their monthly premiums, and to finally sign up for coverage.
That’s because the website is working well. One staffer with Enroll America reports that people are routinely able to sign up for coverage in as few as 30 minutes. Funny that hasn’t sparked nearly the headlines last year’s problems with the website garnered.
And most importantly, people are signing up for health care that can save their lives. A single mother with two daughters in Charlotte named Kimberly knows all about that. She signed up last year with the help of a local legal services office.
She had been uninsured for five years and after enrolling in a health care plan under the ACA, she went to have her first physical in a long time. It was fully covered under the plan at no cost to her. Her doctor discovered she had cancer and began treatment.
A year later she is now recovering from her second surgery and doing well and reports that her doctor said the physical and early discovery of the cancer literally saved her life.
Sorien Schmidt, the North Carolina Director of Enroll America said of Kimberly’s story, “It’s an amazing life changing experience when someone knows if they get that diagnosis of cancer or they are in a car wreck, they are not going to go into bankruptcy because of it or not get the treatment at all.”
Life changing and in Kimberly’s case, life-saving. Kimberly is not alone of course. Last year, 357,000 people in North Carolina signed up for coverage, the fifth highest total in the nation. And they did it without a state run insurance exchange. State lawmakers refused to set one up, even though it would have made things easier for people to enroll and most likely encouraged more insurance companies to offer plans.
And thousands more are signing up now. The ideological opponents of the ACA are absurdly exaggerating the increases in premiums costs for the health care plans offered on the federal exchange marketplace and they never mention that the vast majority of people who sign up are eligible for a subsidy to help pay their premiums.
Last year 91 percent of the enrollees in North Carolina received assistance.
Then there are the benefits of the ACA that are rarely mentioned any more. Not only did 357,000 people in North Carolina sign up for affordable coverage last year, almost 100,000 young adults under 26 in the state were able to remain on their parents’ health care policies instead of joining the ranks of the uninsured.
More than 4 million people with a pre-existing health condition in the state no longer have to worry about being denied coverage. The law no longer allows insurers to discriminate against them.
There’s more, no caps on lifetime coverage, no co-pay for preventive services, and help with medication costs for seniors, etc.
And all this has been accomplished despite the fear tactics and misinformation from political opponents of the law and the efforts of some elected officials to make it more difficult for the ACA to succeed.
Remind me again why there’s such a clamor on the Right to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
And then explain it to Kimberly and her two daughters—whose mom is still there to take care of them.
November 21, 2014 at 1:30 pm
Bennie Lee says:
Chris; who pays your insurance bills and CO-pays?
They have more money than the average NC wage earner. Wail, those are the people you are susposed to really stand up for. Or is it those others, the ones who had reather sit on the sofa, complain there are not jobs and go to the mail box every month.
November 21, 2014 at 2:26 pm
Richard Bunce says:
The basic assumption here is that each person who sought medical care under the ACA and found a serious illness did not have the ability to seek medical care before the ACA when I suspect for many it was a personal finance choice... healthcare insurance being a personal finance planning tool. Of course at no cost to them some have decided to add healthcare insurance to their personal finance plan. I can at least appreciate Chris did not say it was free, just no cost to them... or better no direct cost to them.
I do take issue with the notion that a State Marketplace would have performed better than the Federal Marketplace... a significant number of the State Marketplaces performed even worse than the Federal Marketplace last year.
... and yes I am in the ACA Marketplace last year and this and was able to arrange my personal finances last year to qualify for the ACA Marketplace tax credit and this year will also take advantage of the ACA Marketplace Cost Share Reduction program. I don't particularly like the ACA but I do make the best out of what it is. I was in the individual HCI market long before the ACA and will be in it with or without the ACA going forward.
November 21, 2014 at 7:59 pm
Norm Kelly says:
How many NC residents had their private pay health insurance coverage CANCELLED because of socialized medicine?
Allowing adults up to age 26 to stay on their parents insurance policy did NOT take implementing socialized medicine. Covering pre-existing conditions did NOT take implementation of socialized medicine. Of course, death panels ARE a direct result of socialized medicine. But I notice Chris didn't mention those. Wonder why?
Last year 91% of 'enrollees' received subsidies for their health insurance. There was no cost to Kimberly. Neither of these means that there was or is no cost. Somewhere along the line, someone has to pay for both the 91% subsidized enrollees as well as the NO COST to Kimberly. How does this get paid for? And how about the fact that as a 57 year old MALE I'm still required to carry maternity coverage. Something that obviously causes MY insurance premiums to be higher than they otherwise would be. And how about the fact that I am no longer, by federal decree, allowed to buy ONLY a major medical plan. Why is this option taken away from me? Why do I not have the CHOICE of what coverage I want? Why am I dictated to by the central planners as to what coverage I must pay for?
There are a multitude of reasons why THE RIGHT knows that repeal & replace is the proper thing to do to socialized medicine. It starts with the worldwide failures of socialized medicine. It goes on to the obvious inefficiencies of ALL government programs. It goes on to the lack of choice that central planners allow INDIVIDUALS! It goes on still to the fact that NONE of the underlying problems with our health insurance market were dealt with. Can I buy insurance across state lines? Can I create a buying group for health insurance to qualify for group discounts without forming a government recognized business entity? Has tort reform been taken care of? What exactly was done, what was proposed by demons, what was tried by the demon party prior to implementing/forcing upon us their socialized medicine scheme? Is it fair that ONLY medical device manufacturers are being taxed ON INCOME instead of profit? It is an integral part of the scheme. They are the ONLY industry in the nation that is taxed on INCOME instead of profit. Will this help spur innovation? Will this help spur more manufacturers LEAVING the country to avoid this bogus, confiscatory, outrageous and probably illegal tax?
Socialized medicine has it's own destruction built into it. This is the reason that NOT JUST THE RIGHT opposes socialized medicine in the US. Everyone with the ability to think, do some Internet research, and draw LOGICAL conclusions based on FACTS and information they gather. It only takes a very little education to find that socialized medicine should have been the LAST straw in tackling the problems that were in our health insurance market. Socialized medicine, a take-over of the medical insurance business, should NOT have been the FIRST step in attempting to rectify any of the problems. But the members of the Socialist Party, the core of the central planner mentality, would NOT consider tort reform; would not consider letting states experiment with their own plans; would NOT consider anything less than a take-over by the central planners because concentrating power in Washington is their ultimate goal for EVERYTHING! Nothing good comes from central planners. Prove me wrong. Do your own research, stop reading Chris's propaganda, and find out for yourself how poorly central planners manage YOUR life! How many of those central planners can't even manage their own lives properly, so why would you WANT them to manage your life? Think of people like John Edwards and how he managed HIS life before you decide that central planners SHOULD manage your life! Who is the nut job from New York taking pictures of his private parts and texting them to young girls; is he the type of person that you WANT managing your life? If not, then socialized medicine is something that YOU oppose also. Even if you aren't of the 'hated RIGHT' that libs, socialists, N&D editorial writers, and Chris rail against, if you know that these are not the type of maniacs that you want making life decisions for you, then you are opposed to socialized medicine. Stop worrying about what libs are going to say about you. Stop worrying if you also will be referred to as a racist. Start celebrating the fact that you will be labeled 'educated', 'engaged', 'intelligent', and finally RIGHT!! Is it better to be right, be RIGHT, and be free, OR loved by socialists, the central planners, and editorial writers who are allies of the central planners. Government is NOT the solution, it's almost always the problem.
