Posted on 10/13/2013 9:53:17 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
This is a story out of California that’s been making the rounds this weekend and definitely needs to be filed under, “Who could have possibly seen this coming?” Some of the people who managed the feat of getting through the dysfunctional web site and actually getting quotes on health care policies under Obamacare have already been finding out that “low priced” can mean something entirely different than they may have thought. This is particularly true of older citizens on fixed incomes. But if your income is low enough, you can just scratch off a lot of the cost of those premiums with a taxpayer funded subsidy, right? Sure… but what if your income is too high? Well, duh… you should make less money!
People whose 2014 income will be a little too high to get subsidized health insurance from Covered California next year should start thinking now about ways to lower it to increase their odds of getting the valuable tax subsidy.
“If they can adjust (their income), they should,” says Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow with the Kaiser Family Foundation. “It’s not cheating, it’s allowed.”
Under the Affordable Care Act, if your 2014 income is between 138 and 400 percent of poverty level for your household size, you can purchase health insurance on a state-run exchange (such as Covered California) and receive a federal tax subsidy to offset all or part of your premium.
This, er… “helpful” article offers one retired couple as an example of this phenomenon. In order to fall under the 400% of poverty level ceiling, they need to have a family income of less than $62,040.00, but they they’ll need to trim their income to qualify as they estimate they’ll take in around $64,000.00. So rather than rewarding them for planning ahead to do as well as they can in their retirement years, the system will push them to make less.
And why do they need to do this in the first place? Are they two of those “irresponsible people” we keep hearing about? No. They’ve had a bare bones Kaiser plan which costs them around $7,200 per year. But it doesn’t “qualify” under Obamacare because it doesn’t offer certain mandatory types of coverage… specifically maternity care, healthy child visits and coverage for dependents up to age 26. But these people are in their sixties and none of those things apply to them.
Welcome to the future, folks. And it’s already here.
Obamacare could be a "stalking horse" for single payer government insurance like Medicare or full blown government run healthcare like Hillarycare. Obamacare is too badly thought out to endure as an end product.
I haven’t had a problem making LESS money during the Obama administration; the administration, along with the state of Maryland, has effectively killed many of my clients.
All of Obama’s peeps are in on the scam. The computer glitch gives cover to them using paper forms. They put in whatever low income number they want and no one checks because the income check isn’t ready. He said the first year would be on the honor system.
No honor among thieves.
The Acorn folks will navigate white middle class tea party types into the high end plans while their pals will be navigated into how to lie to make their plans free.
Unemployed and retired conservatives need to “infiltrate” these “navigator” slots as Trojan Horses with the side benefit of $25-45/hr and one less OWS hippie employed.
70 year olds? I’m confused; is DeathCare replacing Medicare?
If we were truly forcing another taxpayer to pay for it, then Obamacare and a lot of other federal spending programs would fail a lot quicker. What is really happening is that the money is being borrowed, which makes these schemes seem like all gain with no pain for the time being. Eventually, they will all fail at once catastrophically. The only challenge for the Democrats is to figure out how to blame it all on the Tea Party, which will be easy with the help of the media and the RINO establishment, as we are seeing this week.
A scam that works for them on many levels and ultimatley kills the middlecalss economically
I used to try to tell folks when I worked for the military, “Managing is for paper clips, people have to be led.”. No one listens, though. I would tell folks to think a “thought experiment”. Think of a sandbox with small hills and gullies. Now if I pour water on it from a flower shower can the water will immediately find all the low spots. Water doesn’t even have a brain. How in the world do you think you can manage PEOPLE with policies and regulations? Before you can even upend your “watering can” people will have figured out where the “low spots” are and will have already dealt with them. Ultimately, this is where socialism fails. YOU CANNOT MANAGE PEOPLE. You might be able to herd cats, I don’t know.
We don’t have to try andearn less, 0bama’s economic policies took care of that for us.
No communist healthcare can be fixed. It’s like the RINO’s saying they can to do worse better.
Punish success. Reward failure. Everyone loses.
Have you been talking to the Wizard of OZ or is it that you are so clueless as to how the government works that you actually believe what you wrote?
You are simply beyond help for your common sense factor is completely missing or that you have been blind as to how the Ministry of Propaganda and the news media shills for the government.
You need to get out sometime and walk around in the real world for a change.
This is exactly what the whole “fundamentally transform America” meant... bring it to it’s knees and destroy it.
Third world America is not far away... there’s still hope but it’s fading fast.
Err, um. Okay.
Carry on regardless in your apparently bleak and hopeless “real world.”
“Punish success. Reward failure. Everyone loses.”
^ THREAD WINNER!
Yeah, but at least they can say “I’m not racist, I voted for Obama!”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.