Health insurance coverage--interview opportunity

[srawlings]

Hello,

I am a new member of the forum, my name is Susan Rawlings. Nice to *meet* all of you.

I am writing a post on health insurance for small business owners, and people who do self-pay. I am looking for comments, or an opportunity to interview some of you here for a post on the Affordable Care Coach blog that I am writing, documenting the difficulties and issues people are encountering with the Affordable Health Care Act/Obamacare.

I would love to hear from anyone who'd like to share their story.

I look forward to learning more about your journeys, and sharing them with others to provide them with some help and assistance with navigating the health care system.

Thanks!

Susan Rawlings

[chrismarklee]

On the United States Income tax code, there are huge penalties now for not having health insurance. I do income taxes and I see it all the time. I have to tell by customer they owe this amount.

[Bobjob]

You don't even want to know.

[vangogh]

Welcome to the forum Susan. I didn't have any problems. The state of Colorado handles its own healthcare site. I went to the main federal site and was redirected to the state site. I spent a few days looking through the site and comparing a few health plans. I chose one and signed up. I didn't have any problems during the process.

[Freelancier]

Before ACA, we couldn't even get insurance without being a two-person company (which got us around the pre-existing conditions limitations in the individual insurance market). So I employed my wife as person #2 in the company and our coverage costs about the same as what's in the individual market, but our doctor network is larger. I blame the insurance company for that. :) Once ACA came into effect, the only change we've seen is that our list of 100% paid items included our yearly check-up. Otherwise, no real change.

Companies under 50 employees -- the very definition of a "small business" -- are not bound by ACA, so any complaints about it are likely ideological instead of fact-based; if they want to offer their employees insurance, there are tax credits available to help them, but otherwise, they can ignore the law entirely except at an individual level.

[vangogh]

any complaints about it are likely ideological instead of fact-based

Pretty much what I was thinking too.