WASHINGTON — While the White House seeks to convince consumers that they will benefit from the new healthcare law, those facing higher insurance costs are complaining about “sticker shock” and threatening to oppose the law, the Washington Post reports.
The backlash involves those people whose plans have been cancelled and who face new policies with higher premiums and deductibles.
Attorney Deborah Persico, whose monthly premium is currently $297, will pay $165 more per month under the new law, with out-of-pocket costs that are twice as high.
“That’s just not fair,” said Persico, who represents indigent criminal defendants. “This is ridiculous.”
Losers under the Affordable Care Act appear to include relatively healthy, self-employed workers or small-business owners who purchase their own insurance. They earn too much to qualify for new federal subsidies but not enough to absorb the rising costs.
“There are definitely winners and losers,” said Sabrina Corlette, a senior research fellow at Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms. “The problem is that even if the majority are winners... they’re not the ones writing to their congressmen.”
Meanwhile, Marlys Dietrick, a 60-year-old artist from San Antonio, said she and her artist friends have been turned off by high premiums and deductibles and would rather pay the fine.
“I am one of those Democrats who wanted it to be better than this,” she said.
Robert Laszewski, an industry consultant, said the new law has resulted in an estimated 30 to 50% increase in baseline costs for insurers.
“We’ve got increased access for sick people and an increase in the span of benefits, so something’s got to give,” he said.
David Prestin, who operates a gas station and diner at a truck stop in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, is seeing his premiums rise from $923 to $1,283 next year. He found a cheaper plan but it requires him and his wife to switch from the doctors they have seen for more than 16 years and travel more than 100 miles from their home to the nearest major hospital center for treatment — in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
“I pay my taxes. I’m assistant chief of the volunteer fire department here in Cedar River and a first responder for Mid-County Rescue,” Prestin said. “You try to be personally accountable and play by the rules, but the more you play by the rules, the more you get beat up on.”