It’s like a broken record. Families and businesses across the nation are expressing the same sentiment when it comes to the new healthcare law – it’s simply unaffordable. For one Virginia family, they are seeing the squeeze both personally and professionally
“My husband is a small business owner, and we have to purchase our own individual policy for our family of 5. Within 2 months of Obamacare being passed, our health insurance pulled out of Virginia, and so we had to find another provider. Our family is very healthy – thankfully, so that was not a factor,” explained Anne.
“But, in order to find another policy with monthly premiums we could afford, we had to increase our family deductible to $10,000 per year. Our previous insurance had been $2,000 per year. We also opened a health savings plan, which we currently fund each year. Our premium has almost doubled since Obamacare was enacted.”
By renewing their policy before October 1 of last year, Anne and her husband were spared from further increases; however, their insurance agent has warned them of what is coming in 2015.
“We were able to keep our existing policy for one more year and keep our pre-Obamacare rates. We are paying $760 a month for our premium, and then we put away $6,200 for our savings plan. I asked my insurance agent, ‘What are we going to be looking at come October 1, 2014 when we have to officially renew under all the Obamacare mandates?’ He said that our deductible will go to $12,000, so now we will be stuck with a $12,000 deductible, and our premium will be around $1,200 to $1,500 a month,” she shared.
The price hike, being too much to bear, is causing Anne to look outside the realm of traditional insurance.
“We can’t afford this. We just can’t afford this. It’s ridiculous,” Anne stated. “Even if we dropped some of the features, I don’t think we are going to get below $1,000 a month [for a premium] unless we drop traditional health insurance all together, which I’m considering doing. There are other programs out there like Medi-Share. That is something we will be definitely looking into, especially if the Republicans continue on the path they are on and have no interest in repealing this.”
For Anne, the impact of Obamacare’s exorbitant costs stretches beyond their family’s situation. Her husband, who runs a professional firm, wanted to provide the company health insurance, enhancing the benefits for current employees while helping attract the best, most qualified professionals to the firm.
“We looked into providing healthcare coverage for our employees, but to insure 15 people, it would have cost our company $100,000, annually. Due to the Obama recession, we could not afford that additional cost,” she shared.
Anne noted that their insurance agent cautioned them that the influx in healthcare costs could negatively affect the company, if they weren’t prepared financially to handle it. Like many businesses, her husband’s company has remained stable, but far from thriving.
“It’s infuriating to hear these politicians, especially Obama, get up there and pontificate that we [businesses] need to hire more people. It is clear that they have no clue what it is like to run a business where you just can’t make up your own money. At the end of the day, if you don’t have money, you can’t move your company forward, hire all these people and give them all these benefits,” Anne exclaimed.
Unlike Washington, Americans don’t have access to a Geithner-generated printing machine to ease budget ills like costly Obamacare.
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