Obamacare inequality?

[Big Money]

For working people making modest wages and struggling with high medical bills from chronic disease, Obama's health care plan sounds like long-awaited relief.


But the promise could go unfulfilled.


It's true that patients with cancer and difficult conditions such as multiple sclerosis or Crohn's disease will be able to get insurance and financial help with monthly premiums.


But their annual out-of-pocket costs could still be so high they'll have trouble staying out of debt.


You couldn't call them uninsured any longer. You might say they're "underinsured."




http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2014/01/under-obamacare-out-of-pocket-costs-leave-some-underinsured.html

 

[Celticguy]

Hurts the middle class the most. This is going to get ugly.
There are patients walking out of hospitals over auths (remember the death panels ?).

 

[Big Money]

A few numbers tell the story.


Take someone under 65 with no access to health insurance on the job and making $24,000 a year -- about what many service jobs pay.


Under the health care law, that person's premiums would be capped below 7 percent of his income, about $130 a month. A stretch on a tight budget, yet doable.


But if he gets really sick or has an accident, his out-of-pocket expenses could go as high as $5,200 a year in a worst-case scenario.


That's even with additional financial subsidies that the law provides people with modest incomes and high out-of-pocket costs.


The $5,200 would be more than 20 percent of the person's income, well above a common threshold for being underinsured.


http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2014/01/under-obamacare-out-of-pocket-costs-leave-some-underinsured.html