True Conservatives are horrified that a working-class couple in their 60s might be able to work less, save money, and get better health insurance.
Take, for example, Jacqueline Proctor of San Francisco. She and her husband are in their early 60s. They have been paying $7,200 a year for a bare-bones Kaiser Permanente health plan with a $5,000 per person annual deductible. "Kaiser told us the plan does not comply with Obamacare and the substitute will cost more than twice as much," about $15,000 per year, she says....
Proctor estimates that her 2014 household income will be $64,000, about $2,000 over the limit. If she and her husband could reduce their income to $62,000, they could get a tax subsidy of $1,207 per month to offset the purchase of health care on Covered California.
That would reduce the price of a Kaiser Permanente bronze-level plan, similar to the replacement policy she was quoted, to $94 per month from $1,302 per month. Instead of paying more than $15,000 per year, the couple would pay about $1,100.
They could reduce their premium to near zero by applying their subsidy to a bronze-level plan offered by the Chinese Community Health plan that costs only $1,057 per month.
For people in their early 60s, "it's a huge cliff," going from 401 to 400 percent of poverty, Pollitz says. That's because insurers can still charge older people more than younger ones.
I have my problems with the ACA. The means testing for older unemployed people is absurd; $62K as a cutoff for a couple in their 60s is kind of miserly. And of course single payer Medicare for all, yes yes yes.
But for this specific couple, the benefits on offer from the ACA are substantial. They could reduce income by making a solid contribution to a tax-deferred retirement account, which is good for people approaching retirement; they could likely afford a better plan with a $5K deductible, which is kind of a big deal for anyone getting up there in years but not yet into Medicare, and who only make $62K; and also too plus or besides, they could work less, which frankly something I personally wanted for my mom when she hit 60.
So clearly Obamacare is the same thing exactly as HITLERCARE.
There you go. Instead of trying to reach for the stars and increase your wealth and lifestyle, it may be better to be a little poorer and be able to get yourself on the government dole! And once you are on the dole, you are hooked for life. That is the dream world of the left – where every citizen is financially chained to the political elite.
This specific couple is already paying throughthe nose for shitty health insurance. Maybe they can "reach for the stars" and get a third job at age 63 in order to still afford shitty insurance, and maybe they could hurt themselves at their third job and go broke and... go on government assistance? Or else die broke? Uh, freedom?
It is a true fact though that once you get old enough to go on Medicare, you probably are "hooked for life." Maybe once all the oldsters figure out what a bunch of moochers they are they'll give all that money back and get jobs at Wendy's to pay for their own terminal hospice care. What a glorious America.
MAS. This, from a person whose skull was long ago cracked open and had the brains scooped out and messily devoured, intrigues strangely.
What Obamacare does, as demonstrated by this eye-opening article, is bring the same economic disincentive to the middle class: It is now a rational economic decision for the average American to earn less money. And to earn less you must work less, and when you work less, you contribute less to the common good.
Which explains why rich people shouldn't have to pay any taxes. Encouraging them to hide their income pays for "the common good." By magic!
And also too if people in their 60s kill themselves to make that extra $2K, that would likewise enhance "the common good," since "we" are all incredibly wealthy private insurance companies.