It's Hard to Participate, I Know All to Well (Post 4 of a Series of Posts)

The following is my fourth post in a series of posts that shows my letter to those members of Congress who voted for ACA.  If you have not read the first post then I encourage you to do so by clicking here and then reading each successive post until you arrive at this one.

The following portion of the letter is my attempt to help the reader have a better understanding of the effects caused by their vote:

Undesirable Options

Added Costs

Because of your vote for ACA we must make some very tough choices, none of which are ideal. We can:

1.     Move to a plan with our present insurance provider that meets the mandates (aka regulations) of the ACA, which is similar to our current plan, but at an increase in premium of approximately $600 per month (a monthly increase of ~130%) to $985 per month and an increase in the annual deductible by $2,500 (an annual increase of 25%) to $12,500;

2.     Purchase one of three plans on the exchange, but even the bare bones plan is more expensive with a higher deductible and less physician choices; or

3.     Forgo insurance, but incur a “tax” (for NOT engaging in ‘commerce’ leaving me to wonder whether the tax will extend to ‘not’ buying a gym membership to stay healthy or to ‘not’ buying catfish or other crops subsidized by the recent farm bill).

Paid By Forgoing Long-term Investments In Oneself

Assuming we do not receive a sizeable increase in pay and if we choose one of the two former options then we must give up something.  Our options are limited because our budget is tight like most Americans. We can:

1.     Stop saving for our retirement and our children’s education, which amounts to approximately a paltry $200/month;

2.     Eat less healthy foods (as we rarely eat out and strive to eat many healthy fresh foods), which could amount to approximately $200/month per a study recently published in the BMJ Open journal;

3.     Drop our family gym membership, which amounts to approximately $100/ month; and/or

4.     Change the after school program for our children to one of lower quality that provides much less enrichment, which could save anywhere from $100 to $400 per month depending upon the risk we are willing to assume.