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Cindy Vinson and Tom Waschura are big believers in the Affordable Care Act. They vote independent and are proud to say they helped elect and re-elect President Barack Obama.

Yet, like many other Bay Area residents who pay for their own medical insurance, they were floored last week when they opened their bills: Their policies were being replaced with pricier plans that conform to all the requirements of the new health care law.

Vinson, of San Jose, will pay $1,800 more a year for an individual policy, while Waschura, of Portola Valley, will cough up almost $10,000 more for insurance for his family of four.

"Welcome to the club," said Robert Laszewksi, a prominent health care consultant and president of
Health Policy and Strategy Associates in Virginia.

For years, the nation has been embroiled in the political rhetoric of "Obamacare," but this past week the reality of the new law sank in as millions of Americans had their first good look at how the 3 1/2-year-old legislation will affect their pocketbooks.

This much quickly became clear:

As state- and federal-run health insurance exchanges debuted across the country offering a range of prices for different tiers of insurance coverage, the new online marketplaces -- which represent the centerpiece of Obamacare -- could greatly benefit more than 40 million Americans who now lack coverage. But an additional 16 million -- who buy individual health insurance policies on the open market -- are finding out that their plans may not comply with the new law, which requires 10 essential benefits such as maternity care, mental health care and prescription drug coverage.

In California, 1.9 million people buy plans on the open market, according to officials with Covered California, the state's new health insurance exchange. And many of them are steaming mad.

"There's going to be a number of people surprised" by their bills, said Jonathan Wu, a co-founder of ValuePenguin, a consumer finance website. "The upper-middle class are the people who are essentially being asked to foot the bill, and that's true across the country."

Covered California spokesman Dana Howard maintained that in public presentations the exchange has always made clear that there will be winners and losers under Obamacare.

"Some people will see an increase who are already on the individual market purchasing insurance," he said, "but most people will not."

Covered California officials note that at least 570,000 of the 1.9 million people who buy their own insurance should be eligible for subsidies that will reduce their premiums.

Even those who don't qualify for the tax subsidies could see their rates drop because Obamacare doesn't allow insurers to charge people more if they have pre-existing conditions such as diabetes and cancer, he said.

People like Marilynn Gray-Raine.

The 64-year-old Danville artist, who survived breast cancer, has purchased health insurance for herself for decades. She watched her Anthem Blue Cross monthly premiums rise from $317 in 2005 to $1,298 in 2013. But she found out last week from the Covered California site that her payments will drop to about $795 a month.

But people with no pre-existing conditions like Vinson, a 60-year-old retired teacher, and Waschura, a 52-year-old self-employed engineer, are making up the difference.

"I was laughing at Boehner -- until the mail came today,"

Waschura said, referring to House Speaker John Boehner, who is leading the Republican charge to defund Obamacare.

"I really don't like the Republican tactics, but at least now I can understand why they are so pissed about this. When you take $10,000 out of my family's pocket each year, that's otherwise disposable income or retirement savings that will not be going into our local economy."

Both Vinson and Waschura have adjusted gross incomes greater than four times the federal poverty level -- the cutoff for a tax credit. And while both said they anticipated their rates would go up, they didn't realize they would rise so much.

"Of course, I want people to have health care," Vinson said. "I just didn't realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally."

Baldy wrote:

Both Vinson and Waschura have adjusted gross incomes greater than four times the federal poverty level -- the cutoff for a tax credit. And while both said they anticipated their rates would go up, they didn't realize they would rise so much.

"Of course, I want people to have health care," Vinson said. "I just didn't realize I would be the one who was going to pay for it personally."

Donks

Low Information Voters

bluehenbillk wrote:You guys act like pre-Obamacare that health care was fine & prices never went up.....

bluehenbillk wrote:You guys act like pre-Obamacare that health care was fine & prices never went up.....

Ibanez wrote:

bluehenbillk wrote:You guys act like pre-Obamacare that health care was fine & prices never went up.....

We lived in a utopia aka the Golden Era of Bush.


Sent from my iPhone

grizzaholic wrote:

Ibanez wrote:
We lived in a utopia aka the Golden Era of Bush.


Sent from my iPhone

I remember cheap gas.

Cap'n Cat wrote:

grizzaholic wrote:
I remember cheap gas.

Funny, I remember dead soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

Ibanez wrote:

Cap'n Cat wrote:

Funny, I remember dead soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

We have more dead soldiers thanks to Herr Obama.

Grizalltheway wrote:

Ibanez wrote: We have more dead soldiers thanks to Herr Obama.

Actually it's thanks to the man behind the curtain, aka the military-industrial complex, making sure we stay in these shitholes as long as possible in order to maximize shareholder value.

Grizalltheway wrote:

Ibanez wrote: We have more dead soldiers thanks to Herr Obama.

Actually it's thanks to the man behind the curtain, aka the military-industrial complex, making sure we stay in these shitholes as long as possible in order to maximize shareholder value.

Ibanez wrote:

Cap'n Cat wrote:

Funny, I remember dead soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

We have more dead soldiers thanks to Herr Obama.

Grizalltheway wrote:

Ibanez wrote: We have more dead soldiers thanks to Herr Obama.

Actually it's thanks to the man behind the curtain, aka the military-industrial complex, making sure we stay in these shitholes as long as possible in order to maximize shareholder value.

dbackjon wrote:

Ibanez wrote: We have more dead soldiers thanks to Herr Obama.

Bullshit - if bush and the other war criminals had done their jobs, we'd been out of Afganistan already.

You are fucking clueless - same as Baldy and Z

dbackjon wrote:

Grizalltheway wrote:
Actually it's thanks to the man behind the curtain, aka the military-industrial complex, making sure we stay in these shitholes as long as possible in order to maximize shareholder value.

Yup. You get it.

AZGrizFan wrote:

Grizalltheway wrote:
Actually it's thanks to the man behind the curtain, aka the military-industrial complex, making sure we stay in these shitholes as long as possible in order to maximize shareholder value.

Well, we certainly wouldn't expect you to blame Obama.

Ibanez wrote:

AZGrizFan wrote:
Well, we certainly wouldn't expect you to blame Obama.

Bush, Obama, republican, democrat they are all the same and all to blame.


Sent from my iPhone

AZGrizFan wrote:

Ibanez wrote: Bush, Obama, republican, democrat they are all the same and all to blame.


Sent from my iPhone

Wrong. NOTHING is, has been or ever WILL be Obama's fault.

bluehenbillk wrote:You guys act like pre-Obamacare that health care was fine & prices never went up.....

JohnStOnge wrote:Bottom line is that you're not going to provide health insurance for everybody...including people with pre-existing conditions...without raising the cost of health insurance for a lot of people.

The whole idea of providing health "insurance" for people with pre-existing conditions is ridiculous, for instance. I mean really. Think about it.

But the entitlement mentality prevails. If you have a personal problem other people are of course obligated to pay for it if you can't.

The whole thing should've been seen as absurd on its face. We're going to create a new entitlement program to guarantee that everybody has a certain level of health care and it's going to SAVE us money.

And people believed that. Good GRIEF.

BDKJMU wrote:

bluehenbillk wrote:You guys act like pre-Obamacare that health care was fine & prices never went up.....

Yeah, 5-10% a yr vs a 100+%, its all the same...