I move into 2017 with a great deal of despair regarding health coverage. Under our present conditions, I could choose to pay $200 dollars a month for employer-provided insurance for myself, my husband, and our son. My employer would match that cost, so the insurance company would make out quite nicely for offering next to nothing. Better coverage through my employer would cost $500 a month for my family. It would also cost my employer more, and neither of us can afford that.
This minimum amount of insurance would make my solidly middle-class family compliant with the rules requiring health insurance, but beyond that the insurance is almost worthless — over $2,000 a year for little more than annual exams. If anything serious happens, it is 100 percent out of pocket. There are no deductibles to meet because only very limited "preventive" care is offered. How this can be classified as insurance is beyond me.
The first year the Affordable Care Act was implemented, we'd had to stop our health insurance, so we paid a penalty. The second year, we were told our income was too much for the subsidy we had previously received, and we had to refund the IRS. The third year, we got letters saying we might qualify for Medi-Cal, were we tempted to use government assistance. Getting into the system feels like a big, complicated balancing act.