>Did everyone just forget what it was like before Obamacare?

Nope, I was adult working at IBM. I had very good medical insurance where it was small copay every time I saw the doctor. I had to get minor surgery on my foot and it was 50 bucks total. I think total cost billed to insurance was 500.

Condition returned in 2023 and I was forced to get surgery again, I ended up paying ~750 dollars because of my Out of Pocket Maximum was not met.

I found IBM health care benefits online (https://www.scribd.com/document/685377925/IBM-Benefits-Summa...) and looks like I would have paid similar if I was still working there.

ObamaCare made things much better for those who could not get healthcare. For most, High Deductible plans becoming the norm left people in much worse state and that's why you see a ton of grumbling about it. Also, since it kept health insurance, it didn't fix root problem so many people are like "We have Health Care Reform? WTF did it reform?"

▲ Aunche 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

High deductible plans are the norm because HSAs are basically free money. Maybe Obamacare really is to blame for shittier health insurance, but it's also possible that IBM is just paying relatively less than it used to. Employers can deposit into your HSA, which effectively lowers your deductible below the minimum required to qualify as a high deductible plan.

▲ WarOnPrivacy 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> ObamaCare made things much better for those who could not get healthcare.

For some people who could not get healthcare. I haven't had usable health insurance since before the AMA because it can exceed my total earnings.

> For most, High Deductible plans becoming the norm left people in much worse state

Which tees up my larger point (thank you).

For years 3 thru 10+ of the ACA:

    News orgs (eg KaiserHN): 'Insured are everywhere now thanks to ACA'.
        (As far as a policy was unusable, lumping those policy holders
        into the insured group - this was more a lie than not.)

    What I actually saw: Unusable policies due to copays.
        Policy quotes that approached or exceeded total earnings ($12k/yr)
        Policy quotes that went down as income went up.
             (quote for $22k/yr earner cost 50% more than quote for $32k/yr)

During ACA's lifetime, news orgs, the insured and politicians haven't given the slightest crap about the many millions of uninsured.

Mostly we didn't exist. Sometimes we did for 5 seconds if it was an opportunity to bash a politician we never voted for.

The problem with disregarding people in a destitute state is they mostly stay destitute. When the more fortunate cease being so, the people they couldn't care about are in no position to help - or even care.

▲

cma 4 days ago | parent [-]

At $12K a year you were at the poverty line, silver cost sharing reduction and you have something like $1K-1.5K max copays and deductibles. You might have not known about it and tried to buy a bronze plan instead, but the silver cost sharing reduction removes almost all of the deductible and the premium credits at the low end bring the premiums to near zero.

Most of Obamacare brings max medical expenses to about 10% of income for a single person but there are a few sudden bumps like when you make too much for the cost sharing reduction, or when you fall below poverty line but your state didn't expand Medicaid even though federal government was going to pay 90% and those states probably come close to losing more just from subsidizing emergency care for people in the gap than the would have paid to expa d before the latest tax bill locked them in to never being able to expand.

	▲	WarOnPrivacy 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		> You might have not known about it and tried to buy a bronze plan instead, I always looked at every plan there was. Most of the work was getting thru the qualifications. After all that, every plan got examined multiple times. > Most of Obamacare brings max medical expenses to about 10% of income for a single person During the 2010s my wife and each brought in ~$10k/yr. That was in line with most folks we knew, in the $10k-$35k range. A typical month made 80% of minimal bills. In searching for policies in the $12/yr range there might have been 'catastrophic' policies that were just most of my income instead of all of it. I want thru the qualification 2x more for $24k and $32k. The latter being the cheapest polices I saw all that day. I took a few screenshots back then. I'm searching my archives and if I find them I'll post back.

▲ s5300 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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