My husband is suffering from a terminal illness. He is 42 years old, and his brain is wasting away. There is no cure. Scientists can do many amazing things, but regrowing brain tissue isn't one of them. They can't even stop the degeneration. All we can do at this point is treat the symptoms and hope he's around as long as possible for the kids. Not just physically, but mentally. We hope and pray that as he fades away from us it isn't torture on everyone involved, but if you've seen what Alzheimer's patients go through...well, the odds are against us.
I tell you all this to say that health care costs and the availability of treatments matters to me. Probably more so than to any other 36 year old I know. I'm informed and personally involved. So, let me tell you that thirty days into the implementation of the crown jewel of Liberalism, my family can answer the question that the talking heads couldn't seem to agree on. Obamacare is going to cost us a lot.
It started with the tax hike that NO AMERICAN making less the $250,000 a year was ever going to see. I don't make anywhere near that as a public school teacher. My husband works for an evil oil field company. In a perfect world he'd easily be raking in a six-figure income, but with his health issues, we're just thankful and blessed that he still has a job. Amazingly enough, we saw a tax hike after the first of the year, and so did you (if you bring home a paycheck). Yep. Every American's paycheck is a little lighter thanks to Obamacare and the increased payroll taxes. Granted, it's not a lot. But that's just the beginning.
Now maybe I'm already coming across as a heartless Conservative. Bleeding-heart Liberals everywhere...okay, the 4 that may read this....are screaming at their computer screens, "But think of all the children and needy that can now receive medical care!!!!" Yeah, I don't care. So there. It's the truth. I. Don't. Care. Life is about choices. My husband and I chose to get college educations. We chose to live in places we didn't think we wanted to live so we could have jobs. And insurance. And support our children without help from the government. It most certainly has not always been easy. But we did it. We don't have new cars, and didn't get our first flat screen television until almost a year ago. We chose insurance instead. We chose to stash money away into Health Savings Accounts and retirement plans and 401(k)'s. We made the choice to be responsible. I am sorry others didn't choose that for themselves and their children, but why is that a "me" problem? Unfortunately, Obamacare made it a "me" problem.
"Treatments" for Ray's symptoms are quite limited, and basically, the neurologist prescribes Alzheimer's medication. Last year, the generic form of Aricept cost $3 for a 30 day supply. This year's cost if $25. That's not a lot of money, but that's an 800% increase!! Unfortunately, Ray can't take Aricept any longer. We've moved on to the last option. Namenda has no generic. Last year we paid $76 for a 30 day supply. You can imagine my horror when I discovered that it is now going to cost us $249 a month!!! I just knew there was a mistake when I went to fill this month's prescription. I went ahead and used money out of the HSA to pay. It was unnerving. I specifically set aside a certain amount of money to cover our annual family deductible and the 20% of costs we pay after the deductible is reached. I know our health care costs are going to be outrageous, so I did the responsible thing and planned ahead. I called the insurance company to straighten out the "mistake" before I even left the parking lot.
The customer representative I spoke with was condescending and hateful. Now, that isn't Obama's fault. It just made a bad situation much worse. It finally occurred to me that she was saying that the high cost is OUR fault because Ray is CHOOSING to take the name-brand medication. I explained that there was no generic. Apparently this particular representative is a future Nobel prize winner in the field of medicine. She replied, "Well, he needs to take something different. I know that there are a LOT of medical alternatives." She also explained to me that insurance wasn't actually paying for any of the medication at this point. I was paying an "agreed upon amount" (the real cost is $419), and that after I had met a $2500 prescription deductible (entirely separate from my medical deductible) insurance would start paying SOME of the cost of Ray's prescription.
After a trip to see a different neurologist at Tech, things only went downhill. We are paying more than we've ever had to pay for doctor's visits, lab work, prescriptions, and therapy. Our medical costs have more than tripled from last year.
As I said, Ray's treatments are limited and expensive. Apparently insurance isn't even covering the costs of his treatments now. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it will. Let me tell you how that's going to play out. We will be informed by someone from the insurance company/government that Ray's illness is "hopeless" and "untreatable". The medication he is taking is not prescribed for his type of degeneration, and so they are going to deny coverage for the treatment or any other "off label" treatment. There is no "label" treatment for Ray's condition. Because it is rare, incurable, and expensive, I believe, at some point he is going to be denied treatment altogether. You can call me a conspiracy theorist, but think about this:
How can Obamacare drive down the cost of medicine when more people are receiving more benefits with fewer people footing the bill?
I made the responsible choice to hold a certain amount money out of our checks specifically for medical costs, and I have less than half of what I'm really going to need. I bought insurance BEFORE anyone got sick which, by the way is the purpose of insurance and how it is supposed to work. I'm paying for the ignorance of the masses.And I'm not just paying out of my HSA. Obamacare is preventing me from stashing even more money away for when Ray can no longer work. Only God knows our future, but we had a plan. We were prepared for what we thought our future would hold in terms of medical and living costs. Obamacare is costing me more than money. It's costing me my peace of mind, joy, and certainty. The real cost of Obamacare can't be measure because it's not in dollars and cents. The real cost of Obamacare is going to be in human suffering.
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