Trashing Healthcare - by Jon Allen

The last few years have been a roller coaster for my family when it comes to healthcare. As a father of two babies I have seen my wife give birth twice since the Affordable Care Act was in place. I have also seen my mother go from an uninsurable cancer survivor to a fighter in the midst of a terrifying battle with stage four cancer. Throughout this past election season she made sure to remind me that she would not have coverage if it wasn't for the Affordable Care Act. It is no secret that I was not a fan of this bill. Because I am young, healthy and make an average amount of money I was in the healthcare premium sweet spot before the ACA came into effect.

As Evalyn and Cohen were born my wife Kari stopped working full time. I also quit my full time job to run a few small businesses and work part time at my church. We now needed to purchase health insurance on our own.What used to be $140 monthly held from my check quickly became an extra $700 out of my pocket. I felt as if I had been swindled. I understood that we needed to help those people with pre-existing conditions get healthcare but I couldn't understand why we were trying to do it through the insurance system.

I have these two conflicting experiences. Out of this tension came what I think is a pretty decent plan for a solution to what I see as the major three problems of our healthcare replacement plan.

WHAT WENT WRONG?
We were promised lower premiums and access to our doctors. They lied to us, and thats not the worst of it. They made it so unaffordable for young families that they had no choice but to apply for subsidies from the government.

Problems Have Solutions:
Problem 1. You see I don't think health insurance makes sense if you can buy it after you get sick. If it worked that way then why would you ever buy insurance before you get sick? Just buy it afterwards and save yourself the premiums.
Solution 1. Instead of lumping people with pre-existing conditions into high risk pools like they want to do, create a fund to pay for their treatment not for their insurance.
Problem 2. The mandate is a must. They want to get rid of it. We have already done the hard work of getting people with pre-existing conditions insured.
Solution 2. So instead of getting rid of the mandate, keep it. Force everyone to have a minimum catastrophic insurance plan.
Problem 3. People without insurance are getting sick and then getting it. Now they just want to charge people 30% more for a few months and say welcome to the health insurance club. This will keep premiums outrageously high.
Solution 3. Give a time limit for everyone to get a minimum catastrophic plan. Once the cut off date goes by and you don't have insurance then you are auto enrolled into the basic catastrophic plan and premiums are taken out annually by via a tax penalty. This one was pretty much set up correctly by the ACA.


So to wrap it up, I think we should stop this repeal and replace plan before we trash our healthcare system even more. We have the power to get this thing done right, most likely we will only get one shot at it before the mid terms and gridlock seems likely.