Progressives Support Shoring Up ACA Before Tackling Medicare For All

[MooDrew]

28. It sure is horrible for myself and my family...

and other chronically ill people. Yes, it covers preexisting conditions but that doesn't mean anything if your preexisting condition requires you to spend what your family out of pocket is every year. Not only that we exceed it despite being on the special Silver Plan because my wife's expensive drugs aren't in the insurance companies' formulary. Why do you think (before Trump got rid of the mandate) there was an exemption to the mandate for people with high medical costs? It was an acknowledgment that it was seriously flawed for people with chronic conditions.

So, yes, if you have something like high blood pressure where the treatment is inexpensive you are good to go, but if you have something more serious that sends you to the hospital once or twice a year and or requires you to take expensive drugs you are screwed.

I will throw this out there too since I have been on the ACA for several years now. I live in a rural area and what I saw year after year was intentional gaming of the Marketplace. What do I mean by that? As you may or may not know, the subsidy you get is not only based upon your income but it is also based on the average premium for a silver plan in your county. Here is what I typically saw. There would be three companies that offered plans. The first two companies did not offer viable plans. They weren't viable plans because there was nowhere you could go to the hospital or even a GP within a one-way two-hour drive that was in Network. Those two companies' plans were always much cheaper than the one viable company that offered plans you could actually use meaning your subsidy was always lower than it should have been because of those other two other companies offering phantom plans. And I am sure that was a feature to hold down costs and not a bug.

I get so frustrated talking to other Democrats about the ACA. A lot of them simply don't understand how poor the ACA is for someone with a chronic illness or an injury and when presented proof they pull out charts and try and sell me on how I just must have misunderstood the last several years of my life because the ACA is wonderful.

I do agree right now it is the best we can do with a Republican Senate and President, but what concerns me is what comes after 2020 assuming Democrats win. I know Pelosi had that secret meeting a few months ago with Insurance executives that leaked where she promised they would continue to get their slice of the pie. That is unacceptable to me.