Obamacare flaw: “Middle-class folks get the burden,” says manager of IFP sales at eHealth

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Former President Barack Obama’s Obamacare had its own flaws — one, in particular, would be the huge difference in health insurance costs between subsidized and unsubsidized Americans.
• According to eHealth report, people with federal subsidies pay about $720 in a year while those who are unsubsidized pay a much larger fee of $4,572 annually.
• UCLA Public Health professor, Dr. Gerald Kominski, admitted that if the person’s income went beyond the threshold, “the subsidies go away completely and a small change in your income can dramatically increase the amount you have to pay for health insurance.”

Former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly known as Obamacare, had broadened the access and coverage of healthcare across the US — but had its own inefficiencies.

According to experts, one of its loopholes is the huge contrast of costs between subsidized and unsubsidized individuals.

Based on a report from eHealth, those with federal subsidies pay around $80 monthly, about $720 in a year. For unsubsidized individuals, they are paying a monthly premium of $456, which would be $4,572 annually.

“It’s not unreasonable to call it a flaw or a limitation in the original design,” UCLA’s Public Health professor, Dr. Gerald Kominski, told Yahoo Finance. “The intention was to try and help people who were most likely to be uninsured and also who had the most difficulty affording insurance in the marketplace.”

The mandate of the ACA subsidies was to help people compensate for their premium health insurance should they meet the following qualification: a US citizen living in the US, not in jail, and with income that is not higher than 400 percent of the federal poverty level.

The federal poverty last year was $12,490. If a person earned more than $49,960 yearly, he would not qualify for an ACA subsidy. For a family of four, the threshold would be yearly earnings of $103,000 (poverty level for a four-person household is $25,750).

For Kominski, it is “a balance between trying to provide the most health care to most people [and] how much this will cost the federal government.”

“As soon as you cross the threshold, suddenly the subsidies go away completely and a small change in your income can dramatically increase the amount you have to pay for health insurance if you’re buying in the marketplace. That is something that really should be corrected,” Kominski admitted.

For individuals and households who don’t meet the subsidy threshold, they shoulder four up to five times more for the premium coverage, the eHealth report stated. A family composed of four people can shoulder between $17,000-$25,000 yearly for unsubsidized health care coverage, whether they received medical care or not is subject to deduction.

Obamacare was a significant move towards health care coverage although it is not widely accessible for Americans.

Obama signed the ACA into law in March 2010. The marketplaces for Obamacare health care catered business in the fall of 2013.

Source: AOL.com