Premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) have helped millions of Americans — including my husband and me — maintain health insurance on the ACA exchange. These subsidies have helped family farmers, small business owners, and community service non- profit employees and others who don’t have access to employer-sponsored healthcare plans.
Congress enacted the subsidies years ago, but recently let them fizzle out. So now, nearly 5 million people are expected to lose coverage this year alone, simply because (according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, KFF) they can no longer afford it. And millions of others who somehow can still afford coverage are suffering dramatically higher premiums — like my husband and I — who live in Page County.
We live in Luray and our combined income is modest, so we’ve previously qualified for the ACA subsidies. With cuts to federal government operations over 2025, I lost my job working for a federal contractor, and was fortunate to snag a new job, but without employer-provided health insurance. As a 55-year-old cancer survivor, it’s just too risky for me to go without health insurance, so we have no alternative but to find the money to continue paying for it. The problem is that now, without the ACA subsidy, our insurance premiums have jumped 80 percent — from about $1,000 per month last year to $1,800 this year. That’s an annual increase from about $12,000 to $21,600.
We are not the only Page County residents suffering this problem. Over 1,000 Page residents face it as well, as estimated by a Virginia nonprofit healthcare navigator. This is not just our problem as individuals, but a collective problem. Healthcare costs will only continue to rise as the numbers of uninsured people rise. They will still need healthcare; hospitals are mandated to provide care. As they treat the uninsured, their costs go up as well as the cost of healthcare and health insurance for those who have insurance. I urge fellow county residents to reach out to Senators Kaine and Warner to ask they continue fighting for affordable healthcare and an extension of the ACA tax credits.
For anyone in Page who finds their out-of-pocket healthcare costs impossibly high, one possible resource is the PAN Foundation. PAN is an independent, national nonprofit organization that provides critical financial help for treatment costs, advocates for policy solutions that expand access to care, and delivers education on complex topics. To learn more about their work, including their grassroots advocacy campaign urging Congress to reinstate the enhanced premium tax credits visit their website, at panfoundation.org.
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So what we are experiencing, and it’s going to get worse, is the result of the government teat running dry and no longer nourishing the increasing vacuum created by Obama messing with the healthcare market. Sounded good didn’t it? “The Affordable Care Act”. So the market responded as all market do. Lots of cash to spend on “healthcare”. Providers saw it and raised peices to make money. Insurers saw the cash too and also got rich. Now, it’s all crashing down around the ankles, leaving the shriveled shame exposed.
Well what’s your plan? Tell the people of Page County already working two jobs to pick up another part time gig? Or maybe they should just up and die because they can’t go to the doctor. Obama care was a cobbled together mess, made worse by Republicans every chance they got. So now what?
I admit to not being up to speed on this issue. I have not been able to afford a doctor or a dentist for many years. All I can relate is a story from a vacation to Canada many years ago. When I asked a Canadian if they liked “government sponsored medical care” the reply was “The best doctors don’t stay here. They make more money in the US”.
Different people blame different players and factors for the high cost Americans bear for healthcare. Some blame government, others blame insurance companies, still others blame private equity firms buying medical practices. But whatever the causes, the result is that many Americans have been priced out of getting decent healthcare and premium subsidies under the Affordable Care Act were meant to remedy that. In context, the cost of those subsidies is modest. The federal legislation that Congress passed and the President signed last year provided tax breaks worth $4.1 trillion over the next 10 years, while the projected cost of continuing the subsidies over the same period was only $350 billion– about 8% (1/12th) of the tax breaks. Failing to continue the ACA subsidies is a clear example of benefiting the wealthiest among us while leaving others without a most precious and basic right as a citizen– decent, affordable healthcare.
Respectfully, please provide the source of the basic “right” of a US citizen to be provided decent, affordable health care.
You’re right. Nothing in the Constitution establishes a right to health care. But now that you’ve made your point what shall we do as a society? Millions of our fellow citizens can not afford health care. We can afford new wars every week or so, just to make oil billionaires richer. There’s a fine new ballroom going up in DC for the uber wealthy to trot around. Elon Musk seems to be doing ok after plundering the government files for all your information. So the wealthy are covered. How about the working guy?
In referring to a “right,” I don’t mean to be legalistic. I am referring to more a matter of morality or general principle widely recognized by religions around the world.
Nevertheless, here’s a relevant excerpt from the American Bar Association:
There are rights to which we are entitled, simply by virtue of our humanity. Human rights exist independent of our culture, religion, race, nationality, or economic status. Only by the free exercise of those rights can we enjoy a life of dignity. Among all the rights to which we are entitled, health care may be the most intersectional and crucial. The very frailty of our human lives demands that we protect this right as a public good. Universal health care is crucial to the ability of the most marginalized segments of any population to live lives of dignity. Without our health we—literally—do not live, let alone live with dignity.
In the United States, we cannot enjoy the right to health care. Our country has a system designed to deny, not support, the right to health. The United States does not really have a health care system, only a health insurance system. Our government champions human rights around the world, insisting that other countries protect human rights, even imposing sanctions for a failure to do so. Our government is not as robust in protecting rights at home.
I feel the tension and listen to the arguments of disagreement. For me, all I know is that I started working at the age of 14. As I’ve said before, I’m not looking for sympathy or a hand out. Please do anything you can to keep life here and everywhere in the US affordable. Politics are taking their toll the quality of life so many.
Denise, I’m glad your okay after your battle with cancer.
Robert, I never looked at our government as a teat nor do I want to believe others do
George, I was lucky enough to have survived full time jobs that I gave my all to, but left me so little time to be a wife and a mother and didn’t set me up for a comfortable retirement.
Skip (if I may use your nickname), Its voters who keep getting it wrong, Not their fault of course. It’s always a lousy choice of candidates. How do we fix that?
Your healthcare subsidies, etc, fit into the following observation by Alexander Tytler in 1787. “A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.
The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
So by terminating healthcare subsidies, aka, ObamaCare, and others, Trump and the GOP are doing what they can to extend the life of democracy in the US by unplugging voters from the government teat!!
If that were even close to true we would be moving towards a balanced budget. But Trump managed to thrash government services with his chaotic and reckless DOGE affair while actually increasing the debt and deficit. Fewer services and more debt – brilliant. Meanwhile, after trashing our allies of 70 years, we’re in another war, costing us about 30 billion a day. The purpose of that war is to reinforce the global monopoly of the uber rich oil barons. Meanwhile the Trump government has removed many of those pesky rules from the Wall Street robber class. And we all know how that ends. There are profound reasons for a hard conversation about balanced budget. We must get control over spending. But this chaos in DC is not the way to get there. Nor is it intended to be.
To your last sentence:
Extending the life of democracy… by shortening the lives of its citizens?
Samuel. If that’s how you want to take it. How about everybody taking better care of themselves?? That might help. Obama gave his violent islamist friends in Iran 40 billion. Did that help the US in any way?
Damsons. Nice try turning Tyrler’s observation around. But it is true. It’s why we don’t have a balanced budget.
When the Affordable Care Act passed over 20 million previously uninsured people gained access to healthcare, including life saving cancer care and other treatments that would otherwise have bankrupted them. The Republicans in Congress voted to end that support in order to give huge tax breaks to the richest Americans, like Elon Musk, who has already benefited from $38 billion in public funding to support his personal businesses. Personally, I’d rather see my hard earned tax dollars go to support access to healthcare than make billionaires richer.
Money already goes towards healthcare via Somali theft. They justify stealing money from infidels as “Jizya”. Then there’s the private doctor offices who rip off medicare and medicaid.
For What It’s worth…
I think it’s so sad that no one is being taken care of or valued unless they can afford to pay for it. I’m glad that my childhood wasn’t spent growing up in this hot mess. There’s an old country song by “Jack Quist” titled “Change Our Ways”. Listen to it! It speaks to the issue at hand.
“Paula D”. Did any of the Founding Fathers of the US have government healthcare? The expectation has spiraled upward. Like Democrat LBJ said, “Give the N’s a little something, and I”ll have them voting for Democrats for 200 years.”
How’s that MAHA thing working out for you? Lots of very odd people in that ‘admininstration.’I
If I remember right you described your health care being centered around Medicare. Spit that teat out yet?
Why yes I’ve used Medicare. Medicare has always confirmed what I’ve always suspected. That I’m in perfect health still. As an example, a cardiologist said that I had aneurysmal disease based on a CT of the upper body. Not a bulge, but the whole aorta is big in proportion to me. Oh well, next came an ultrasound of the lower extremities. Same story. Big. The visit notes were changed to “shows no sign of aneurysmal disease”. Sure thing I’ve used Medicare, but it’s not because of anything I did to myself like smoking, drinking, putting things where things ought not to be put, causing vehicle accidents, but instead, not eating with a shovel, regular exercise, etc. I didn’t vote for it, but if the teat is there, I’m on it.
Well Mr. Sanford you may get lucky on that teat (depending on your age) as Medicare is about to expire by 2040 or possibly sooner…
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/medicare-will-run-out-of-money-12-years-earlier-than-expected-23b24c83
No offense to anyone intended. No snide comments towards anyone’s opinion. What I am seeing is that public opinion has become as adversarial and non-negotiable as the Republican and Democratic parties and all the elected officials. It’s no wonder the concept of a democracy is failing. Work together. Talk. Listen. Negotiate. Convince the elected officials that IS their job. If all they are going to do is bicker amongst themselves, there will be no progress. The alternative is what? A dictatorship? A king? An American Sheik? Another and another war? I won’t be here, but your descendants will be. The path we are on is one that will never afford them any chance of achieving their American dream. Please consider that there is the chance that the President, having been raised in affluence, is unbearably egotistical. That doesn’t make him a wise leader. He might only think in terms of money, money, money. If you don’t agree with him, you’re fired. Again, I need to state that I am an Independent. I have voted for candidates representing both sides of the aisle. That’s where “the people” come into play in by voting for the “lesser evil” and that is not always black and white, I know. I can say emphatically, I’m against “sticking with party lines”. It disjoins people.
“Paula D” Politics is and always been a contact sport. Some of the founders and their supporters hated each other but we still got a good result. The point I’ve been making about Medicare, etc is not its existence. It’s the mismanagement, lack of oversight, lies by politicians, individual’s abuse of themselves, doctors making false claims, graft and general corruption by insurance companies is what makes premiums high. For every age. The only solution is somebody like a Trump, who I take you think is a mean person, who can call a spade a spade. And by the way Trump never abused any prepubescent female. He’s not the kind. I recognize your desire and effort to be a leader to rise above everything. Everybody will always have their thing they think works for them.
I will not comment on your reply, Robert, except to say that I respectfully disagree. At my age, wondering how much longer I can afford to keep my modest home scares me. I simply spoke my opinion publicly and that is out of character for me. If I won the lottery, which I can’t afford to buy a ticket for, I’m sure that I wouldn’t spend the winnings taking people to court.