Sunday, February 08, 2015

Get Health Insurance Now!

The deadline to get health insurance for 2015 through the Health Insurance Marketplace established by the Affordable Care Act is February 15th.  That is less than a week away!  If you need to enroll in a plan, go to https://www.healthcare.gov/ to get covered today!

Granted, the health insurance requirement can seem tough in Texas since we are one of 19 states that has not opted to expand Medicaid coverage.  The plan under the Affordable Care Act was that states would, with federal assistance, expand Medicaid coverage to cover those who currently earn too much to qualify for Medicaid (for which very few healthy, non-pregnant adults qualify) but too little to afford health insurance premiums.  Since Texas did not do that, there now exists a significant class of people who are required to purchase health insurance but cannot by any means afford to do so, even in the barely-sort-of-way that those of us in the middle class scrape to afford health insurance which is way, way too expensive for all of us.  The overall expense problem would only be solved by a single-payer system, I think - which I am all for - but the gap left by Texas' refusal to expand Medicaid is a more urgent problem. 

For which I think the real answer would be a change in Texas leadership.

Still - it's time to enroll if you haven't. 

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