Rising costs of healthcare are unaffordable under Obamacare. Photo via Vangelis Thomaidis.

As a family of four, making approximately $50,000 a year, I fear that Obamacare will render us homeless or bankrupt.

Currently my family has a private health insurance policy which covers critical illnesses. I quite like it. It’s affordable and allows me to economize under my own risk analysis. If one of my kids gets sick, I pay a high deductible and the rest is covered. I choose this high deductible plan so that I can basically self insure the rest of my family’s healthcare needs. If one of my kids needs to go to the doctor or I need to go to the doctor, my plan grants me the repricing discount, so the office visit isn’t much more than many deductibles offered by large corporations. However, if something catastrophic happens, I take responsibility for a high deductible and am covered.

Problem is — my plan doesn’t meet the requirements of the Obamacare mandate. So, if were to continue with my plan, I would be charged the $2,500 penalty on top of my health insurance coverage, which is expected to rise significantly under the lowest coverage required. If I cannot afford both, I will still be charged the $2,500 and have NO insurance.

So, in short, I will be paying twice as much if I continue with the coverage I have now, or I will have to upgrade to the minimum plan to which nobody can tell me what the costs are. Let’s say that the minimum coverage is $500 a month, even $300 a month. I can’t afford this, so I will have to drop healthcare altogether AND pay a penalty of $2,500.00.

If I qualify for a government subsidy, I will still have a higher out of pocket monthly expense with subsidized benefits that are no better than the coverage I have now. Insurance premiums are expected to rise as much as 30% under Obamacare compared to the 5% – 6% increase before Obamacare.

So, how is this helpful?

Anyone?

Congress people are acting like children and should be treated as such. Photo via Terri Oda Flickr Commons.

Guest post by Roger Caldwell

As we get closer to an election year, I find myself watching politics more closely, and I’m noticing something familiar about the interactions of Congress and the president. There have been several issues lately (the debt ceiling, the jobs crisis, heightened tension in the Middle East) that have given us a great opportunity to see how these great lawmakers, these descendants of the great men who founded this country and bound it together with the very Constitution that our current elected officials now serve, are basically just a bunch of spoiled, bickering children.

Watching the debt ceiling debate, I tried to follow the deep meaning and far-reaching implications of what was being discussed, I really did. But in the end all I heard was “You said there would be tax increases!” “Did not!” “Did, too!” “You said you would cut Medicare and Social Security!” “Did not!” “Did, too!” “If you make me raise taxes I’m going to sick my rich lobbyists on you!” “If you make me cut Social Security, I’m telling the AARP on you!” Specifically, Congress reminded me of two young children close to each other in age. If you imagine that cutting Medicare and Social Security was a “Buzz Lightyear” toy that the Republicans wanted, and tax increases (on the rich) was a “Singing Spongebob” that the Democrats wanted and raising the debt ceiling was bath time—neither child really wanted it, but they knew it was going to happen anyway, so they just tried to milk their dislike of it to get some extra playtime with their favorite toy.

Where does the president fit in? In the debt ceiling debate, I see President Obama as a babysitter, an inexperienced babysitter, maybe only a few years older than the oldest child. He has a favorite, the Democrats, but he tries to be at least appear fair to both because he has a job to do. More importantly, his job involves getting both kids to take that bath (the debt ceiling increase), so he is willing to promise the moon and stars to get them to do it if he has to–he wants the parents to hire him for another night. Maybe a more experienced babysitter would have more tricks to use, more authority to exert pressure, but he does what he can and eventually they get into the bath water, even if it’s an hour past their bedtime and they’re hitting each other with toys while they’re there.

Now the bath is done and the babysitter needs to put the kids to bed—in other words it’s time to put through a jobs creation plan and a formal budget. The babysitter tries to coax both kids by saying “We play 3 minutes with Buzz and 7 minutes with Spongebob, then we go to bed.” The problem is that the Democrats want all ten minutes with tax increases on the rich, I mean Spongebob, and the Republicans want all ten minutes with Buzz (cutting Medicare and Social Security). The Republican child will threaten to stay up all night and not pass a jobs plan if they don’t get what they want and the Democratic child will threaten to tell the parents if they don’t get what they want. In the end, we have to hope that they settle somewhere near 50/50 and everyone gets to bed before midnight.

So who are we in this? You guessed it—we’re the parents. We’ve been out and had a great time and have come home to early to find the kids fighting, the house is a mess, and somebody put a saddle on the dog. Who do we blame? The babysitter? Maybe. They certainly own a share of the blame. The kids? You bet. They’re unruly and taking advantage of the babysitter and we raised them better than that. Or did we? We raised these kids (voted for them, in this case, often for multiple terms). Maybe we failed to give them proper discipline; maybe there should have been some more time outs before it got to this point. Maybe it’s not too late to start. One thing is clear—if we ever want to go out and enjoy ourselves again, we have got to get our house in order.

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Have a debate post you want to submit? Email the editors at admin (at) imperfectparent.com

I love Christmas

I love making Christmas cards, giving people thoughtful presents, GETTING thoughtful presents, mulled wine, real Christmas trees [so not going green there..] and spending time with friends and family. I start getting pumped for Christmas in August, and this year I’ve made some changes to our usual festivities.

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I am about to send out the invites for our four-year-old’s birthday party next month. Christmas is just a few weeks later. Every mailbox brings a stack of catalogs. Every TV show is already embedded with dozens of toy commercials. Not even Ace of Cakes is sacred anymore.

We’re weeks away and the onslaught of “I wants” is almost more than I can handle. We’ve held her at bay with “we’ll put it on your list.” and “You can ask Santa.” We’ve let her practice her writing and drawing and scissor-skills by circling, cutting and pasting desired objets d’fun onto constuction paper. But, in this economy, we, like other families, are scaling back.

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Okay, while The Imperfect Parent strives to be non-partisan, we thought we’d give our readers a rare opporunity on this blog to express their opinions and give you a forum to support and respectfully debate the current issues leading to a critical decision this pending election.

Please keep in mind, — be civil and respectful and remember, just because someone has negative or opposing opinions about your candidate, doesn’t mean they’re a “bad” person or that they’re dumb. The only dumb people are those who don’t vote. Be there or be square on Tuesday, November 4th and post your reactions here.

Happy politicking.

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UPDATE:
Who wants to predict the outcome? Will we know today or even at the end of the week? Could this decision change everyone’s life forever?

Also, be sure to check out Julie’s new column today, to see who’s voice she’s really missing right now.