Another Happy Health Insurance ‘Loser’

Last week I posted about how the supposed scandal over people losing their health insurance was overblown.  Those losing their policies tend to qualify for subsidies for better policies.  A reader of the Orlando Sentinel tells her story.

The “loss” of coverage, if you look closely, is so much hubbub. Most canceled plans don’t meet the new standards of the law. In our case, the only explanation from the insurer was that our policy was implemented in 2010, coincidentally the year reform became law. And in August, the insurer went to great lengths to warn us. We were phoned twice and received a letter that our coverage would end Dec. 31.

We never worried. We were confident: More affordable insurance would arrive Oct. 1, despite a minority in Congress who shut down the government in a pique, desperate to undermine the law whatever it cost.

Well, imagine: We didn’t even have to sign up on that maligned government website. We read that one insurer was offering coverage in all 67 Florida counties. We phoned. We visited. We’re going to save, and save big — even if we don’t qualify for a penny in subsidies.

You see, we’ve been forced to purchase our own health insurance for several years. The deductible was enormous; the premium was often more expensive than our monthly take-home pay, particularly during a bout of joblessness. We were forced to dip into our savings. The risk of going without insurance was a gamble we could not afford to take.

So, thanks to what detractors call Obamacare, we had no choice but to go with a better plan that costs less money.

By: Stuart Shapiro

Stuart is a professor and the Director of the Public Policy
program at the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers
University. He teaches economics and cost-benefit analysis and studies
regulation in the United States at both the federal and state levels.
Prior to coming to Rutgers, Stuart worked for five years at the Office
of Management and Budget in Washington under Presidents Clinton and
George W. Bush.