I Heart Obamacare

Well, we did it.  The lovely Mrs. Gammons and I just officially signed up for health insurance coverage through the HealthCare.gov website.  Yes, the website is finally working properly.  The coverage is solid, provided by an actual insurance company, and the price is right.  And for good measure, we've tossed healthy 20 year-old Buster Jr. into the actuarial mix.

We're doing this because your humble correspondent has long been self-employed and the dear wife lost her job, and family insurance benefits, at the end of October.  We've been in this position before and have needed to pick up health coverage via the old individual-issue marketplace, which really sucked -- low limits, high prices, lots of unfair exclusions.  Many of those sort of policies are now, appropriately, defunct.  They don't meet today's minimum requirements.

(Somewhere between 3 and 4 percent of all insured Americans have coverage through the individual marketable place.  Some -- not all -- of those polices are discontinued, because they are shit.  And this is where Republicans are staking their claim that Obamacare is a disaster and the President "lied" -- a fraction of a small fraction.  Bitching about it is their big strategy for the 2014 mid-terms.  Good luck with that.)

Today, Obamacare makes it easier and better than trying to figure out the individual market all by yourself.  The website is slick, coverage is improved and guaranteed, choices are sufficient, and most people (including us) are going to get at least some small amount of tax-credit premium rebate to make it more affordable.  

Just a couple months ago, we surely didn't expect to be doing this.  But stuff happens and here we are.  And since I've been a such constant and vocal proponent of Obamacare, now that I'm part of it, I'm glad to say that I'm really pleased with the process.  This is just a first step in real healthcare reform -- our system is still far too expensive, and a true public option remains the goal -- but I think it's gonna work just fine!
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If you wish to know more about how I got involved in this issue, click the links below.  The first is a photo from 2010 of Columbus Mayor Mike Coleman and Buster (seated to the left of the lectern) on the podium at rally celebrating the passage of the ACA.  The second is one of my early posts talking about that rally.  The third is a wide-ranging healthcare rant written in my pre-blog days of 2009.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/progressohio/4483331702/in/set-72157623626802641   

http://bustergammons.blogspot.com/2010/04/hangin-with-sherrod-mary-jo-and-mike.html

http://bustergammons.blogspot.com/2010/02/health-care-reform-buster-explains-it.html