The options (as described by this article) are:
1) Not have any medical insurance coverage for yourself of your family.
2) Buy a stand-alone policy for your family. The cost of which will be in the ballpark of $20,000 a year (due to the new federal mandates in ObamaCare you will not be able to buy a high-deductable, catastrophic policy).
3) Buy a policy through an exchange (either your state exchange or the federal exchange if your state doesn’t set one up). Cost? About $5,000 a year.
$5,000 vs $20,000 vs no-insurance
These are the 3 choices you will face if your employer decides to drop coverage, pay the fine, and let their employees fall under ObamaCare (which a lot of employers are going to do in 2014, regardless of whether their state has set up an exchange).
No-insurance is a non-starter for me. Sorry, but I’m not going to put my family in a position to risk financial ruin to make a political point.
Paying an extra $15,000 a year to make a political point is also a non-starter for me—I simply don’t have the money. So, I won’t be purchasing a stand-alone policy.
Which leaves me with only one practical alternative: purchase health insurance form the govt pool.
I don’t like how this works out, but this is how ObamaCare is designed—to box citizens in and leave them with only one practical alternative.
You forgot to add the fact that Obamacare will force people of faith to violate their conscience if they choose the exchanges. Paying for abortifacients and contraception for others may not be a deal breaker for you, but it is for millions of Catholics and Christians. And no one said you can’t receive treatment if you’re not insured. Maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to throw in the towel.
Other options under Obamacare:
* Join a medical sharing ministry like Medi-Share - they’ve been recognized as a legal alternative to health insurance.
* Join a religious group with an exemption to Obamacare, be it Christian Scientist, Muslim, Amish.
* Be legally too poor to pay the fine but refuse to sign up for government services.