Comment: The personal story below shows quite clearly that the genius masterminds who gave us Obamacare screwed up – BIG TIME! This woman lost her plan AND her doctor after the Patient PROTECTION and Affordable Care Act made it impossible for her employer to help her. If you don’t care about her story, there’s something wrong with you.
My name is Ericka Nicholson and I am the City Manager and EMS director in Quinter Kansas. You asked on facebook about problems with insurance due to changes with the ACA – I would like to share the below with you and if you feel any is relevant you have my permission to share.
The City of Quinter hired me to come back to my hometown to be the City Manager and EMS director. The City cannot afford a group insurance plan, so prior to 2015 the City of Quinter paid their employees single premium directly. This was a cost saving to me of $381 (It was a blue cross blue shield select plan). The following year (first year of ACA) BC/BS notified me that this plan was no longer available in my area and I had to choose another plan. When 2015 rolled around, I then was notified by the auditors of the City of Quinter that due to changes in the ACA, this could no longer happen – the City could no longer pay my policy directly. There was NO WAY my employer (City of Quinter) could afford a group plan so I LOST my insurance altogether. I was able to get on my husband’s insurance through the school where he teaches, but the payroll deduction for this hit us hard, and it is a very high deductible and the premiums have doubled. I did check into getting insurance through the exchange but the only plan I qualified for had worse coverage than my husband’s and we did not qualify for any kind of tax credit or subsidy. We basically had no control whatsoever and were held hostage by huge cost hikes.
My child is independently insured by his father who pays a monthly premium. AGAIN during open enrollment with BC/BS in October of 2016, we were notified that the plan we’d been on NO LONGER existed – so we picked a premium BC/BS plan called “Blue Select” which is the best policy they have. I was notified by Children’s Mercy (where my child’s pediatric endocrinologist is) that THEY NO LONGER PARTICIPATE WITH BLUE SELECT! The Children’s Mercy website updated their insurances for 2017 and the list is quite long. This was where my child’s specialist was – so we had to rush to find a Coventry policy that has lower premiums, but also much lower coverage for pharmacy and specialist visits. How does the state’s largest provider of Insurance cut out the Region’s largest Pediatric specialist resource???? When I called BC/BS they stated it was due to mandated changes in the ACA.
Promises of ACA vs My experience:
‘Your plan won’t change’ – mine not only changed but went away
‘You won’t lose your doctor’ – LOST my doctor
Ericka Gillespie – Nicholson
Administrator
City of Quinter