 |
| Will it continue? |
Yes,
I’m amongst the people who really can’t afford to pay the full cost of this
policy, and am hoping to continue to receive the assistance I have got in past
years from the federal government as a result of the Affordable Care Act.
YOU
KNOW, THE one that President Donald J. Trump and his ideologue allies want to
believe is the most disgraceful part of the Barack Obama legacy, the one they’d
like to believe will wither away and the one that Trump himself has claimed to
have killed off because of provisions of his $1.5 trillion tax plan.
As
I comprehend it, if I had chosen to ignore the issue, I would no longer be
susceptible to financial penalties for failing to have health insurance.
Which
the Trump-ites want to believe will make many people disregard the issue, and
will cause the problem to wither away.
Which
is why I found it amusing to read reports showing that the number of people who
filed their applications by the Dec. 15 federal deadline for ACA financial help
with insurance was nearly as high for 2018 as it was for 2017.
IN
ILLINOIS, IT was 339,740 people (including me) who filed for help for next year
(which begins Monday), while it was 356,403 people who sought help this year.
Nationally, according to the Chicago Tribune, it was 8.8 million people, compared
to 9.2 million to the previous year.
Which
is amazing, when one considers that in their efforts to undermine the federal initiative,
they made a point to cut back the registration period. The aforementioned Dec.
15 deadline in past years was the end of January.
I
know in my case, it made me think more promptly about being sure my application
for Affordable Care Act assistance with health insurance was in on time, and
that it be double-checked to ensure there were no glitches that would cause me
to be rejected due to my own ignorance.
 |
| Will Trump's ideological opposition prevail? |
Because
it seems the ideologues who now control of the federal government want to do to
this program what they have allowed to happen to immigration policy.
AS
IN OUR nation has an immigration policy filled with so many bureaucratic
glitches that it can be easy for some unknowing soul to make a mistake that is
later used against them as a reason to reject any sort of compassion for
someone wishing to remain in this country.
Just
as I suspect the Trump-ites are hoping many of us blew the deadline or make a
mistake with our renewal applications so that they can reject our requests for
assistance that makes health insurance affordable – which was the whole purpose
of the Obama-era initiative.
So
could it be that this program so despised by the ideologues who want to believe
that anybody without health insurance is just a deadbeat who won’t “get a job!”
is actually so popular that we, the people, went to great lengths to make sure
we couldn’t be denied?
Personally,
I’m not sure what to believe. My own application through HealthCare.gov responded
to me by saying all is in order, once I get that binder payment to the
insurance company by Monday (the first of the new year).
BUT
I’M GOING to be uncertain about my fate for the next few days. Because as I
have been in recent years, I’m self-employed – as in doing work for companies
and checking the mailbox for checks.
 |
| Part of Obama legacy to be most missed? |
I
do know that when I looked at the actual cost of the policies offered by
various insurance companies, all cost more than I could cover in their entirety
on my own. The idea of federal aid in providing health insurance to the masses
is something that benefits our society as a whole, unless you happen to believe
that a certain individual’s profit margin is more important than not having
healthcare available to as many as possible.
I’ll
be checking the news accounts of coming days, weeks and months to see if
further politically partisan tampering with the issue further restricts the
ability of the Affordable Care Act to fulfill its purpose.
And
if I find myself unable to fill a medicinal prescription in the future, I’ll be
amongst those complaining, along with, of course, Walgreen’s – which I’m sure
has as its bottom line selling as many drugs as possible and could see its bottom line slashed if some of us can't pay in full!
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment