Like countless other young Americans in college, I received a letter in July informing me that my graduate school would no longer be offering an option for student health insurance. “Usage rates of the plan, changing health insurance regulations, and the administrative workload that is involved in managing a plan” were cited as the reasons for the alteration in university policy.
At nearly 26 years old, I would soon be ineligible to remain on my parents’ employer-sponsored health insurance plan, leaving me with only one option: the Affordable Care Act’s Health Insurance Marketplace.
After two weeks of falling victim to the numerous technological glitches of HealthCare.gov, unsuccessful troubleshooting with online customer care, and long waits to speak with customer service over the telephone, I finally made contact with an actual human being.
“Just go on Medicaid,” the HealthCare.gov customer service representative told me. “With you and your spouse’s income, you will be eligible.”
“Are there any other options?” I replied.
“Pay the full rate,” the representative said bluntly.
The full rate is no longer affordable. According to the Manhattan Institute, the Affordable Care Act is expected to raise individual premiums by an average of 41 percent, leading to higher average costs in 41 of 50 states. To make matters worse, the highest rate increase for any demographic is males in their mid 20s, who will see premiums rise by an astounding 77 percent.
With healthcare premiums simply unaffordable, the only other choice available was to enroll in Medicaid.
Because my wife and I are both graduate students, we live primarily off of student loans and infrequent odd jobs. We do not have any elaborate expenses, but we certainly are not struggling. We have our own car, we occasionally go on vacations and we frequently eat out at restaurants. Needless to say, we certainly are not the typical family in need of Medicaid.
Yet, according to the ACA’s guidelines, we have found ourselves in the position of having to decide between paying a premium we cannot afford or benefiting from massive subsidies paid for by taxpayers — when I could and should be contributing to the cost of insurance. The more experience I have with the Health Insurance Marketplace, the more it looks like nothing more than a thinly veiled expansion of Medicaid.
Evidence of this argument rests in the data itself. According to Medicaid.gov’s November report, 27 percent of people applying for insurance in the Health Insurance Marketplace were determined to be eligible for Medicaid. That means that in a little over a month, nearly 400,000 people were offered enrollment in Medicaid who were not already in the system.
Last year, I used my limited income and student loans to pay for my own health insurance policy. This year, despite having more money in my pocket than I did a year ago, I am now being told that I am eligible for Medicaid. I went from a contributor to the healthcare system to an unnecessary burden upon it in just a few short weeks.
I’ve seen the frustrated, tired and scared faces of low-income Americans who are truly in need of government assistance in multiple healthcare clinics where my wife has volunteered during medical school — and I could not stand the thought of taking government assistance. Contrary to popular belief, I know the federal government has limited resources, and although nearly free health insurance sounds like a fantastic deal, more money in my pocket ultimately leads to less assistance for those people who truly need it.
So faced with the choice of paying a premium I could not afford or with joining Medicaid, I opted for a third option: short-term private health insurance.
Unlike the previous two plans, short-term health insurance, especially for young and healthy Americans, offers lower rates than plans provided in the government-run Health Insurance Marketplace. It also allows me the opportunity to contribute to the costs of my insurance so that I am not an unnecessary burden on an already strained system.
There are millions of Americans in need of medical assistance, and something had to be done to help those who cannot help themselves. But, when all the dust has cleared from the ACA’s implementation, what kind of a system will be in place? Will we have a program that finally addresses the numerous problems the health insurance system has faced for generations, or will we be stuck with a nightmarish bureaucracy that transforms paying contributors into unnecessary Medicaid recipients? It’s starting to look like the latter.
