It's Hard to Participate, I Know All to Well (Post 5 of a Series of Posts)

The following is my fifth 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:

Salt Added to the Wound

I think you would agree none of these options are ideal. I find it even more galling that Senator Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio), who also voted for ACA, stated in his letter to the Wall Street Journal editor published on January 30, 2014 that “Americans deserve … thoughtful and vigorous discussion of … the looming retirement crisis facing too many Americans” in response to a previous op-ed by Andrew Briggs published on January 24, 2014, yet Senator Brown’s vote along with yours for ACA clearly contributes to our “looming retirement crisis” that he very passionately laments. Is that what you desire? For every cause there is an effect.

Subsidizing (through a transfer payment from some other hard working individual/family to us via the inefficient government conduit) is not an option for us, as we now make just enough income that the subsidies are immaterial, but do not make enough income that the increase in the healthcare premium is not acutely painful as I describe above.  More importantly and I stress more importantly, a transfer payment does not address the root cause that makes healthcare unaffordable and leads to perverse incentives as documented by the recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report. A simple understanding of economics explains why.