THE ACA (Affordable Care Act) aka Obamacare! - Part I

POLITICS

The origin of this law came from a Republican Governor, Mitt Romney (he ran for President against President Obama), who implemented this law in Massachusetts, and it is working very well there. When President Obama took on the horrible health care situation in the United States, Mitt Romney’s model was used as the overall outline for the new law. President Obama was pushing for a single payer system like Medicare, but faced stiff opposition from the insurance industry, the Republicans, the echo chamber i.e., Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, etc. The Republicans, as well as a few Democrats who are bought and sold by insurance lobbyists, were afraid of losing their jobs in Congress, capitulated and thus the ACA (Affordable Care Act) was borne.

This ACA law gave rise to the now infamous “Tea Party Movement”. These Tea Party Congressman recently shut the government down. The shutdown, which lasted 16 days, stopped our economic engines to the tune of $24 billion dollars to taxpayers.

• Hundreds of thousands of federal workers bore the economic brunt of the shutdown.

• Small businesses also suffered from frozen government contracts and stalled business loans.

• Tourism suffered from closed national parks, and military families had to cope without childcare and other services.

• Federal workers will receive back-pay under the deal, but contractors will probably not receive their lost wages.

• The stall in cash-flow could affect spending during the holiday shopping season.

Reference CNN Money/Time Swampland Politics 10-17-13

Twenty-four billion dollars could fix a lot of problems in our economy. However, this money was lost because Republican congressmen who have such intense hate for anything that bears the name of President Obama, were willing even to destroy the economy or anything that bears the President’s name.

All is not lost however. Even though this is a totally compromised bill, some very good things came about which eventually became law. This law was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2012, even though it was watered downed even more by the very right leaning Supreme Court.

Some Provisions of the ACA Which are Very Important!

As of October 1, 2013, you could begin shopping for coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace with the coverage actually starting in 2014. There are existing problems with the website that are grossly overblown and exaggerated, but this will be repaired. Remember when Medicare was instituted? Remember when Medicare Advantage was instituted? Legislation like Medicare, Medicare Advantage, and the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) are ginormous and very complicated. Medicare and Medicare Advantage (MA) had enormous problems on their rollout. Did you see anyone trying to sabotage these laws? No. Democrats worked together with Republicans to make both laws work better. Medicare and Medical Advantage (MA) are now loved my many; just try to take these programs away! Let’s give the ACA law a chance and see where it goes. It is already working and doing something good for thousands and thousands of people already.

Some provisions of the law started as early as 2012. The exchanges were set up to begin in 2014, which you are applying for now. You are now in the qualifying stage for the exchanges. On January 1, 2014, the actual insurance coverage kicks in.

Many people now have access to healthcare and are not DYING!! Check out some of the provisions.

• You cannot be denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition. This is huge! This means if you have diabetes, high blood pressure, or cancer you cannot be denied. People who are bipolar or schizophrenic can now get coverage. Can you believe people were denied health insurance because they were bipolar? Children who have cancer will no longer have to die because their insurance company denied them coverage. Again, this is absolutely amazing!

• Your health plan cannot place annual or lifetime limits on how much they will pay for your medical bills i.e., 1, 2, 3, 4 million. People actually believed their insurance coverage would last forever. This was believed because these people never had a catastrophic illness. An illness like multiple sclerosis (MS) or cancer could have wiped out your lifetime benefits as in as little as 6 months to a year.

(Part 2 of this post coming soon...)