We have health Insurance!

When we retired, we had the safety net of health insurance through the school district where I had taught for thirty years. The full cost was nine hundred and seventy dollars a month and paid by us. I had planned on this and so we paid and even planned that it would rise before we reached sixty five. Unfortunately it rose to two thousand one hundred per month in less than four years, (an increase of 116%).

To add to this we have preexisting conditions, my heart disease and my wife’s type one diabetes. The costs of our medicine and doctor’s visits were about eight thousand a year and so our total cost for medical care was about thirty two thousand per year with an eight thousand dollar deductible.

We simply could not afford this and so, for the first time in our lives, had to forgo health insurance. Last year, (2013), I reached age sixty two and tried to buy health insurance with the additional income from my social security. To our surprise the insurance companies would sell us insurance but denied coverage for any preexisting medical condition or related illness, (thanks for nothing).

So our only hope, with our preexisting conditions, was to wait for the Affordable Health Care Act to take effect and we waited and waited for the October first opening of the Health Care web site. While we suffered with everyone else as the web site crashed and crashed, by November first of 2013 we were able to finally register and receive the details and costs of nine different health insurance plans available to us in the State of Wyoming.

The plans ranged from a bronze plan costing a little less then sixteen hundred per month to a silver plan at a little over twenty two hundred per month, (we make too much to get any subsidy and so pay the full amount). While still high, (Wyoming has the highest cost and least available plans of any state), the insurance covers our preexisting condition and, so starting March first, we now have health insurance coverage.

As I watch the news I continue to hear Republicans vow to repeal every line of Obamacare, (the Affordable Health Care Act). I wish they would put their energies into coming up with a viable plan to fix the Health Care mess and actually try to fix the problem instead of attempting to repeal the law and deny us coverage, (how about giving us the same plan that Congress has?).

So for now,we now have health insurance and the peace of mind that brings. Thank you President Obama. Clear skies.