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Thankful for Obamacare
Many enrollees are thankful for Obamacare coverage. CNNMoney looks at some of the success stories.
1 of 5
Saving my life
![[Image: 140325083215-obamacare-success-kathy-bentzoni-340xa.jpg]](http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/140325083215-obamacare-success-kathy-bentzoni-340xa.jpg)
Name: Kathy Bentzoni, 58
Hometown: Slatington, Penn.
Job: Freelance graphic artist/part-time school bus driver
I started feeling sick in January, but I thought driving a school bus, I was picking up whatever the kids had. But when I was checking the school bus early in the morning in the cold, all my fingers would go numb.
I had signed up for health insurance early enough to get coverage for Jan. 1. I had to drop my old, useless insurance back in November because I could no longer afford the premiums. The insurer denied every claim I sent in because they said it was a pre-existing condition. That's the wonder of Obamacare ... they can't say that anymore.
I have a Highmark Blue Shield silver plan. I pay $55 for the premium with the tax credit. I almost cried when I saw it. I thought 'Oh my god, I can actually afford this. It's amazing!"
On March 1, I had to go the ER. They found my hemoglobin level was 5.7, and the normal is 14. I needed a transfusion. It was due to a rare blood disorder.
Where would I be without Obamacare? ER, 3 units of blood, multiple tests in the hospital and a 5-day inpatient stay without insurance? Probably dead.
I have to thank Obamacare for saving my life.
2 of 5
Getting continuous care
![[Image: 140324021102-obamacare-success-gurvinder...-340xa.jpg]](http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/140324021102-obamacare-success-gurvinder-bindra-340xa.jpg)
Name: Gurvinder Bindra, 39
Hometown: El Segundo, Calif.
Job: Tech contractor
I've tried to get individual health insurance, but was rejected because I am diabetic.
I'm a contractor, so when I was between jobs, I didn't have health insurance.
I signed up on Covered California. There was no issue. I now pay $900 a month (for a family plan) with a $20 co-pay and no deductible. I found a new doctor. I'm getting my insulin, needles, whatever I need.
Having continuous care, monitoring and advice is important for me. Without someone looking out for me, I've faced pitfalls. My kidneys and eyes have been affected. If I had constant monitoring, I wouldn't have those problems.
I have a wife and two kids with medical issues. My older kid hit his head against the couch and had an asthma attack. Fortunately, Covered California was there. In a previous attack, we had to pay $7,000 out of pocket because we weren't covered.
I just lost my dad last year to diabetes. The Affordable Care Act couldn't have happened fast enough for me.
See the other 3 here: http://money.cnn.com/gallery/news/econom...ees/3.html
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My story is more severe than those. Acute renal failure and 3 weeks in the hospital + rehab. Preexisting condition for me too. Thank you OHP and ACA.
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(03-30-2014, 10:52 AM)bbqboy Wrote: My story is more severe than those. Acute renal failure and 3 weeks in the hospital + rehab. Preexisting condition for me too. Thank you OHP and ACA.
Yes, thank you! Glad you're still alive and getting the help you need!
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In spite of what OL spouts, I've got 3. Wonderful doctors doing their best to save my kidneys and me. And they don't bitch about Obama.
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Make that 5 doctors, counting the VA ones.
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03-30-2014, 08:58 PM
(This post was last modified: 03-30-2014, 10:38 PM by cletus1. Edited 3 times in total.)
(03-30-2014, 11:01 AM)Scrapper Wrote: (03-30-2014, 10:52 AM)bbqboy Wrote: My story is more severe than those. Acute renal failure and 3 weeks in the hospital + rehab. Preexisting condition for me too. Thank you OHP and ACA.
Yes, thank you! Glad you're still alive and getting the help you need!
Yep. A local story about Obamacare that is true. It is sad that many of the Obamacare horror stories posted here turn out to be misrepresentations for the most part.
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Seen on Facebook:
Quote:Isn't it funny that the government "makes" you buy car insurance and home owners insurance and no one says a word. For those of you who say you can't afford health insurance what will you do when you need your health insurance. No need to answer I already know you will run to the doctor or hospital and expect everyone else to pay for it. It's ok when you need a handout then, right? The hypocrisy of the right is mind blowing.
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(03-29-2014, 08:21 AM)MarkM Wrote: (03-28-2014, 07:52 PM)orygunluvr Wrote: If Obamacare is so great, why all the extensions mark? If iot was meant to get more people on insurance why have an enrollment period? Before Obamacare anyone could buy insurance at anytime, without the possibility of a penalty.
Enrollment periods are nothing new to the insurance racket. Every company insurance plan has one.
The real penalty is needing insurance and not having it while you're on your way to the ER.
OL you like using "the Google," didn't Bush give a 6 months or so extension on his prescription benefit plan ?
I don't see the connection between "so great" and delays. Perhaps "very complex" would be a better term.
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(03-31-2014, 04:14 PM)broadzilla Wrote: http://energycommerce.house.gov/rate-shock
I suppose if you want to believe anything that is overseen by Fred Upton and Marsha Blackburn... that's your right. 
Just look at their cute little map:
![[Image: premiumchart3-1000x763.png]](http://energycommerce.house.gov/sites/republicans.energycommerce.house.gov/files/resize/images/premiumchart3-1000x763.png)
Every state says things like "potential", "average", "example", "for one insurer", "estimated". Hellllloooooo.... hyperbole.
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No change in Oregon. Woo-hoo! Cover Oregon!!!
Scrapper's right. It's an irresponsible "report."
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(03-30-2014, 10:08 AM)Scrapper Wrote: Quote:GOP activist in Koch-funded ad attacking Obamacare costs turned down cheaper coverage
The real Obamacare horror story for the GOP? It helps the people it’s supposed to help
![[Image: Screen-Shot-2014-03-30-at-9.24.10-AM.png]](http://www.eclectablog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Screen-Shot-2014-03-30-at-9.24.10-AM.png)
A new ad featuring a Grand Rapids resident complaining that her new health insurance plan is “not affordable” due to Obamacare leaves out an important fact. Shannon Wendt turned down Medicaid coverage for family, according to posts she made on her Facebook wall.
The ad from Koch-backed “social welfare” non-profit Americans for Prosperity neglects to mention that the Wendt family could be enjoying nearly fully subsidized government insurance, thanks to the Affordable Care Act.
Hmmm. Seems kind of important.
Wendt — a Republican precinct delegate who has taken strident stands against Obamacare in the past — echoes right wing complaints about Medicaid that hint at the fallacious and malicious argument that having Medicaid is worse than having no coverage at all.
A recent study in Oregon found that Medicaid recipients were better off both financially and mentally after brief periods of coverage.
On Facebook, she said she didn’t feel that a family that earns as much as hers should qualify for Medicaid. A spokesperson for AFP said that family had not been happy with MICHild coverage they had for “a short time” in the past.
Wendt preferred her old plan and wanted to keep her family’s doctor, which are completely understandable desires. The promise that people can always keep the plan and doctor they want was’t true before or after the law passed. And Wendt has a point, this was a broken promise. But even in a pre-Obamacare era, millions lost their coverage and their doctors. The number of uninsured Americans went up by 7.9 million under George W. Bush. And if Republicans have a plan where everyone can keep the plan and doctor they want forever, they should offer it now.
But her other complaints are unfounded, specious political attacks. Wendt may not like Medicaid but it provides a crucial lifeline for millions of Americans.
The program could definitely be improved by increasing spending on the program so that reimbursement rates more closely resemble Medicare. Instead, the GOP is denying an expansion coverage to millions of working Americans and Paul Ryan’s budget includes huge cuts to Medicaid that would make the problems the right complains about far worse.
Wendt put her family in the Medicaid gap — a situation millions find themselves in unwillingly. Thus, she has to pay more to get coverage, by her choice. Families in Florida, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana and even Maine would be jealous of this predicament.
Wendt had a low premium, high deductible plan where costs could have skyrocketed out of control if someone in her family had gotten sick. (We can’t say this for sure as she hasn’t released the details of her old plan.)
Obamacare was designed to help families like Shannon Wendt’s. But she didn’t want it. AFP should have pointed this out in the ad.
This is the second ad to air in Michigan in as many months with a person with connections to the Republican partty who actually could benefit from the law posing as an Obamacare victim. Julie Boonstra will likely pay less to treat her cancer thanks to Obamacare, which could also help millions of cancer victims who weren’t lucky enough to have insurance get covered. Shannon Wendt has volunteered to pay more to protest Obamacare and she blames Obamacare for her protest.
Clearly, there are many people who have been put in uncomfortable positions because of the failed roll out of Healthcare.gov, which has now been fixed. And of Americans who lost their plans and had to get new ones, there may be a few million who have to pay more to get the guaranteed cover Obamacare offers.
But an upper-middle class person being asked to pay more for coverage that offers more consumer protections isn’t exactly a tragedy. The Kochs are using Republican activists to fake horror stories for a simple reason, they’re having a hard time finding actual horror stories.
In her commercial, Wendt laughably says that Obamacare is “destroying the middle class.” In reality, Obamacare — along with the earned income tax credit — is the only thing the government has done to push people into the middle class and keep them there since the 1960s.
Tens of millions of Americans are benefiting from Obamacare and Republican activists still hate it. Tell us something we don’t know, Koch brothers.
http://www.eclectablog.com/2014/03/repub...erage.html
Yeah but she's real cute, turns in her homework on time, won't let her boy friend stick his tongue down her throat, and changes underwear every day.
You know: A Young Republican.
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04-01-2014, 10:04 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-01-2014, 10:22 AM by SFLiberal. Edited 1 time in total.)
How come nobody has answered this very simple question. Of those who have signed up how many have actually paid their premium? Or another simple question. To be viable Obamacare at least 40% to be the young and healthy millennials who will be paying for the old and not so healthy. So how many of these millennials have signed up? Surely in this age of super computers those figures should be available at the press of a button. Obama wouldn't be holding back these numbers on us, would he? 
This may explain why Obama will not release the numbers...
Quote:Some Bay Area Residents Refuse To Sign Up For Insurance, Will Pay Penalty
April 1, 2014 12:02 AM
SAN JOSE (KPIX 5) – Despite an extended deadline to sign up for health care under Covered California, some in the Bay Area are choosing to pay a penalty instead of insurance because of the cost.
Brian Roi has worked as a bartender without insurance for the last two years. He chose not to sign up for health coverage because at the end of the night, he said the math does not add up.
“It doesn’t work for me.” Roi told KPIX 5. “I went to college. I have to pay all these student loans still I’m paying those. I’m paying credit card bills that incurred when I went to college.”
Roi said he would have to pay about $3,000 this year for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.
He said it’s just too expensive. “I’m just trying to stay healthy,” Roi said.
Roi would rather pay the penalty, which is $95 the first year or one percent of a person’s taxable income, whichever is greater. In his case, it comes out to $350 for 2014.
“I guess they’re trying to scare people into doing it. But a smart person will realize that’s only one month of insurance,” he said.
Covered California spokesperson Dana Howard told KPIX 5 about those who don’t sign up, “That would be a mistake, because you might be able to come out ahead financially for a short time of paying the penalty and not paying for your premium, but you will pay that penalty and you will have nothing to show for it.”
As of February, 25 percent of Obamacare applicants were young adults under 34.
Robert Hicken, a self-employed entrepreneur, said, “I could have done it, I could have pulled the trigger, but that feeling in the back of my mind is still kind of rubbed me the wrong way that I live here in the United States of America and I’m being forced to do something.”
Hicken knows he can’t go without health insurance for long, but he is taking the risk for now.
Representatives for Covered California told KPIX 5 that they don’t know how many people know about the law but refuse to sign up.
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/04...y-penalty/
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04-01-2014, 10:13 AM
(This post was last modified: 04-01-2014, 10:16 AM by SFLiberal. Edited 1 time in total.)
(03-31-2014, 08:29 PM)MarkM Wrote: No change in Oregon. Woo-hoo! Cover Oregon!!!
Scrapper's right. It's an irresponsible "report."
Ya. Oregon has it dialed. So how many people signed up on the Cover Oregon website?
Here's a blast from the recent past. Last September Obama praising Maryland's Governor O’Malley’s implementation of ObamaCare and Maryland's state’s health insurance exchange:
Quote:It's a website where you can compare and purchase affordable health insurance plans, side-by-side, the same way you shop for a plane ticket on Kayak -- (laughter) -- same way you shop for a TV on Amazon.”
O'Malley later repudiates Obama:
Quote:This is not like ordering a book on Amazon. Each person that applies is unique in terms of the family, the number of people in their family, their income levels … the final result is when we click on and elect a plan.
A few short months later:
Quote:Maryland fires Obamacare exchange IT contractor
Dan Mangan | @_DanMangan
Monday, 24 Feb 2014 | 4:05 PM ET
Some may say it's a couple of months late and $65 million short, but Maryland finally fired the contractor that designed its botched Obamacare exchange.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101441068
Shades of Cover Oregon 
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Here's the deal, SFL. O has my best interests at heart. You don't. Pretty simple equation.
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7,041,000 Woohoo!
They met the goal.
When the reports on Fox News about Obamacare slow to a trickle, you can bet Obamacare is working for many Americans.
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(04-01-2014, 11:04 AM)cletus1 Wrote: 7,041,000 Woohoo!
They met the goal.
When the reports on Fox News about Obamacare slow to a trickle, you can bet Obamacare is working for many Americans.
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