After months of hype and hysteria, insurance policies purchased under the Affordable Care Act went into effect on New Year’s Day, and journalists have largely pivoted from writing about the problems of HealthCare.gov to how the law is actually working for consumers.
Some journalists don’t have to look very far. That’s because they are the story, too.
Back in December, I wrote about Missouri public radio reporter Harum Helmy, who earned too much for her state’s Medicaid program and too little to qualify for a subsidy that would have offset the cost of an insurance policy on Healthcare.gov.
“I know — an uninsured health reporter,” she wrote to me. “The joke’s not lost on me.”
Since then, reporters across the country have been telling their stories—and they seem to square with the broader experiences of the public.
Take Steve Friess, a freelance journalist and former reporter at Politico. In a first-person story for the Daily Caller last week, Friess wrote about how his partner, Miles Smith, had signed up for a plan, only to try to cancel it days after it took effect because it turned out to have unexpected costs.
After the initial elation at finding a reasonably priced plan, Friess wrote, Smith found out it wasn’t so great after all.
Three days into 2014, Miles took his Obamacare out for its maiden drive. His stop at the doctor went fine. At the pharmacy, it crashed.
His medication — which has cost us a co-pay of between $10 and $30 under every other plan he’s had since 2004 including one under Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan — would not be covered. At all.
That’s $438 out of pocket. Every month. And it won’t even go against the plan deductible.
In other words, this nifty $246 Obamacare plan would actually cost $686 a month.
