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The Affordable Care Act required purchasing of individual health insurance for everyone in your household, and provided a penalty to those who could not. There
by einhverfr 7y ago
The Affordable Care Act required purchasing of individual health insurance for everyone in your household, and provided a penalty to those who could not. There was a gap between where this requirement was effective (the income tax filing requirement) and the poverty line, which meant that Medicaid was understood to be the coverage of last resort.
But new immigrants are barred from access to Medicaid, meaning if we had returned to the US, we would have had a 5 year period where we could be fined for me losing my job just because I am married to a non-citizen.
Now, the first policy (Medicaid exclusion) was a part of Bill Clinton's re-election campaign (and when Hillary responded to the accusation of helping round up votes for it, she defended that law, guaranteeing there was no way I would vote for her). The requirement to purchase without undoing the exclusion was done entirely by Democrats without any GOP help.
When your family has been sold down the river enough times, there's a lack of trust. I maintain that the Democratic Party treats families like mine as cheap bargaining chips because we only get one vote as a household while other families get two, so there is not much harm in throwing my family under the bus or off the boat if it gets some other votes somewhere.
At the end of the day the only two things politicians want is your money and your vote. And it is only in these ways we can hold them accountable.
- wilg 7y agoHonestly, I don't even know what to say to this. It just makes me sad. I'm sad because it seems like your reasoning is based on an extreme corner case – a hypothetical fee if you hypothetically moved and hypothetically lost your job and hypothetically couldn't find insurance. I'm sad because no one should have to worry about that anyway. I'm sad that this loophole exists and hasn't been fixed. I'm sad that you're blaming and not supporting the people trying to fix health care. I'm sad that those people didn't do a better job fixing it. I'm sad because I'm pretty sure you're going to make it harder to fix in the future. And I'm sad because I don't know how to have a constructive conversation on this anymore. Thank you for engaging with me. I hope I'm wrong – I hope your political effort and strategy is able to help the people you care about without hurting others.
- einhverfr 7y agoEconomic insecurity is nothing to laugh at. I have economic security to some extent where I am living. I would have such security in a different way if we moved to my wife's culture despite being excluded from a lot of initial opportunities. But the first time we moved back, I was unable to find a job and needed that assistance, which was then denied to me. I don't see how it can be fixed. Both parties throw families like mine under the bus as easy ways to appease others. The only way I see is to try to start a very different approach to our national conversation and that is not going to come from our parties of capital (either one).