Losing a job isn’t fun under any circumstance, but it used to be made all the more stressful by the loss of health insurance that went with it. Now, thanks to Obamacare and Washington State’s relatively easy to use health insurance exchange, the newly unemployed have one less thing to fret over.
Logging in to WAHealthPlanFinder.org this morning, it took me about a half hour to complete my application, compare plans, and sign up. I chose a “silver” plan from Group Health with a $200 deductible for only $92 a month after a $300 a month federal subsidy (based on my current meager income from unemployment). And I could’ve done it quicker if not for some repeated glitches in the Safari browser. Once I switched to Firefox, everything went smoothly.
The downside with switching to Group Health is that I can’t keep my current primary care physician, but that was likely true of The Stranger’s insurance too, as my doctor recently switched his practice from Polyclinic to Swedish. The exchange reported that my doctor would’ve been covered under a $168/month plan from Community Health Plan, but my doctor’s office couldn’t confirm that. On the cheap side, I could’ve alternatively purchased a $42/month plan from Coordinated Care, but their HMO offered far fewer providers, so I split the difference and went with the larger and more established Group Health, which also conveniently has a clinic down the street.
By comparison it would’ve cost me $329/month via COBRA to continue on my less comprehensive Stranger insurance. So Obamacare will end up saving me quite a bundle.
As long as I’m unemployed, that is. Should I get a decent paying job relatively soon, I’ll probably have to pay back some of this subsidy on my 2014 tax return. But that’s okay; I’ll be able to afford it. Whereas right now I’m operating under a very tight budget.
So, thanks, President Obama, for easing my job transition with some affordable health insurance. And thank you, WAHealthPlanFinder.org, for putting together such a relatively well designed website. While I would have obviously preferred a single payer system that wouldn’t require me to change my health insurance every time I change employment, this is a helluva lot better than the individual market that used to ream people like me.
And Obummer just admitted on his Obummercare…
Obummer interview with WebMD!
Well David, you saved money. How about all those who are paying more and losing their doctors anyway?
Hey Moldy, Mazel Tov!…On writing the lamest post ever.
Did you send this to Mike Kreidler (WaSt Insurance Commish)? And to the President?
This would make for a great commercial on Obamacare –
I LOVE OBAMACARE!!
I’ve been at GHC for over 20 years, and through a couple serious issues. I have to say, they’ve been great. You won’t be disappointed.
I got a great deal as well.
What we really need though is “single payer.”
But Goldy, now that you have unemployment AND affordable health insurance, you can just live high off the hog! You have no incentive to get a job! You need to experience the crippling pain and panic of being unable to afford the very necessities that would enable you to stay healthy enough to re-enter the workforce! Where does this all end? Universal pre-K? Those entitled toddlers need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, unlike you, you teat-sucking leech.
@6
Good point. He’s probably going to spend the money he saved on meth and Cadillacs.
Seriously, though, I’m fortunate enough to have insurance through work now, but it can end, so reading about Goldy’s experience eases my mind a bit.
@1 “How about all those who are paying more and losing their doctors anyway?”
That’s what you get for opposing single payer! Go whine somewhere else.
@6 You’re confused. It’s capitalism, not socialism, that turns rabbits into lazy and unproductive sloths like me. Why should I work when the stock market pays me to sit on my fat rabbit ass? Any economist will explain why socialism doesn’t work. But capitalism is sustainable, because instead of taking from the few and giving to the many, it takes from the many and gives to the few, and that can go on forever! Yay capitalism! Sure beats going to a job.
I’m living in Eau Claire Wisconsin these days and and just signed up on healthcare.gov. I applied all of my tax credit to my monthly premium and my payments and coverage are about the same as before.
I did pay a little more than I had to so that I could use the Mayo Clinic system.
@10 hey I used to live there!
Hey Goldy, welcome to the experience of every 20something. A lot of us got extended Healthcare under our folks to 26 and now can go on Medicaid / cheap insurance. No millennia will vote to get rid of Obamacare.
of course you are saving a bundle David. Someone else is paying for you.
@11…”No millennial will vote to get rid of Obamacare.”
This one would.
@11
I’m enjoying Eau Claire, it’s a nice, mellow town.
@12
I’m getting a tax break. Just like I get for my IRA and, since I haven’t had employer paid health Ins for a couple of years, just like I got for health insurance and some medical expenses in the past. Just like plenty of Republicans who are scream about people getting a free ride are getting tax breaks for their oops babies that they created.
If it were up to me we’d ditch all tax deductions completely.
@12, Insurance is a pool. Everyone pays for everyone else. How long have you paid for car insurance without being involved in an accident? How long have you denied the process of critical deliberation?
“of course you are saving a bundle David. Someone else is paying for you.”
And everyone thinks moochers are just bums, who knew so many had college degrees and had just made shitty career choices?
“Insurance is a pool. Everyone pays for everyone else.”
Well some people get other people to pay their share and apparently being an abled bodied, white college graduate is still an excuse to be a fuck up.
@12 @17 And for most of my life I’ve been paying for you. I’ve never had a lapse of coverage, and for the past 30 years have never consumed enough health care to go beyond my deductible. Plus, I’ve also purchased my insurance on the individual market for most of my adult life, meaning I got reamed in order to subsidize lower rates for group plans plus to pay for uninsured care.
But the minute I lose a job I should suddenly be denied coverage? And were I to temporarily lose coverage due to unemployment, and luck of the draw choose that time to get seriously ill, I should be denied coverage for the rest of my life, after having paid into the system for 50 years?
I’m sorry that people like you live in such a mean and irrational world. It must be terrible.
@19
I don’t know about you, but all I’m getting is a tax break and the only real difference between ObamaCare and Pre-ObamaCare is that I can apply that tax break to my monthly premium instead of waiting until the end of the year to take it.
Don’t thank Obama, peckerhead… Thank us – we’re paying for you.
I want my free stuff. I should get to retire for free on all of you.
@19…
Don’t get all high ground here…
I have had insurance at some times in the past and not others – I have it now. But it doesn’t matter because I have never used it at all.
Why are the lot of you so sickly?
I really want to see the tax expenditure for employer sponsored insurance eliminated – just because i want to see the entire smug middle class shit their pants all at once. Yes, it would cost me – but it just might spark a revolution, and that would make it worth it.
couple of things:
15: You are not getting a tax break or tax deduction, you are getting an actual tax break (that is actual money). So someone else is paying your premium or big parts of your premium).
19: W
19: We can probably argue whether you paid for me (and I doubt that seriously), but the issue is not with the insurance pool or anything else, but with your statement: I love ACA (because I’m saving a bundle)…(without stating the reasons why.
No loosing your job shouldn’t deny you health insurance, and again, I doubt it did. What you mean is that loosing your job no longer covered you with your employer. And there are plenty of options out there (individual insurances, group insurances with Alumni Assoc…etc). You can easily get one, so pls don’t claim you were denied.
@23
I’d hardly call $75 a month big money and when you add everything up it comes out to about the same amount as I was claiming on taxes before.
A few people will do much better under this system, a few will do worse, most will be like me and will be about the same.
When you look at all the loopholes and deductions we have, some that are completely silly, it hardly makes any sense to get all hot and frothy about the handful of poor folks that will be slightly better off under this system than they we’re before.
If I had it my way there’d be zero write offs and employer paid health insurance would end. Let’s let businesses worry about the business they’re actually in and not have to spend their time, energy, and money on health insurance.
I took advantage of the new laws to dump Group Health. I found it be a bureaucratic nightmare. With the insurance side running the show, making cuts in service left & right. But they build pretty buildings. Could not recommend them.
@22 I have had insurance at some times in the past and not others
I’ve had insurance since I was born. The individual/small company market has been a big ripoff for a couple of decades. Thanks to Obamacare we are seeing some sanity return.