According to Charles Gaba of ACASignups.net, South Dakota is one of sixteen states where more Americans signed up for Affordable Care Act Exchange health insurance in the truncated 2017 open-enrollment period than did in 2016:
South Dakotans vote for Trump, who promised to repeal ObamaCare, and then 30 more of us get insurance thanks to Trump’s failure to carry out that promise. Thanks, Donald, John, Mike, and Kristi, for your predictable Republican fecklessness!
30 more people signed up and the signup period was what, 30 days shorter?
I would be one of those South Dakotans that signed up! Despite the fact that my monthly premiums quadrupled (my insurance company stated that was because of uncertainty of Trump/GOP) , it is still affordable and provides excellent coverage for me. Also, I’m not getting “punished” because I have a pre-existing condition and that I’m female.
Like many Americans, South Dakotans realize that health insurance was out of reach, not even possible without the ACA. While the ACA is getting beat up and tossed around, people realize that it still has merit.
Nick — yes, the sign up period had been reduced. As well as the “budget” to promote the ACA had been severely chopped.
For the plan year of 2017, the enrollment period lasted until January 31. For the plan 2018, the enrollment period lasted until December 15. A month and a half difference and still more enrolled on the success of the ACA Obamacare. More people signed up in spite of low to none advertising, in short, the two senators and the person who thinks she could be of benefit to South Dakota by being its governor, prove once again all three are not up to the task.
With a pre existing condition, it is imperative that the ACA Obamacare continue to provide goods and services to our neighbors who have happened to have an accident, illness or even birth, that would otherwise put them out of coverage completely.
Even if you are a republican, vote Democratic to rid the corruption that has fallen upon our state, we can do better. Start with Billie for Governor and move right into Tim for the House to make the ACA Obamacare that much better for us all.
Just you wait, someone will see the headline and tell Drumpf and he will Tweet about how much better he is than Obama. I feel some more headache coming on.
Dana, where would you have signed up if there wasn’t an ACA?
Ok Old Sarg, I’ll attempt to explain, I hope you are paying attention.
Prior to the ACA, and PRIOR to my cancer diagnosis, (in other words, I didn’t have a pre-existing condition) in the individual market — I signed up for catastrophic insurance. That was the only thing I could afford. It was a $225/month payment for crap insurance (that is what catastrophic insurance is – crap) It basically would help me out if I had something medically horrific happen to me (major health event). At that time, I would have had to shell out $25K initially, and then the insurance company would pick up the rest of the tab. I’m sure you are aware, but in the case of a major health event, it doesn’t take anything to reach a $25K bill. My “gamble” at that time, as a healthy individual, was that if something bad happened to me, I could afford the $25K hit to my bank account, but still have a roof over my head. But nothing else is covered in that type of plan. Routine doc visits, medications, ER trips, etc. Nope. Catastrophic ins doesn’t cover that. Also, I paid a higher rate due to my gender. Also, at that time, IF I had a pre-existing condition, I would have either been denied insurance OR if I found a company to insure me, my rates would have been even much higher.
Fast forward to ACA. Not only were the monthly premiums affordable for me, but it was actually a good policy. Thanks to ACA mandate and preventative screening, my cancer was diagnosed at an early stage, I went through 18 months of surgeries and treatments, and am so far cancer-free. My medical bills at this point for my cancer treatment are close to $300,000. In what world does a normal person afford that? If I hadn’t had insurance, I would have had to dip into my pension (that I worked 28 years to accumulate) to pay that bill. I am fortunate. Most people (and I met many at the cancer center) had to make choices to stop treatment because they had exhausted their savings account – and they knew that stopping treatment would cost them their life.
The ACA literally saved my life. Saved my life physically, saved my life financially. The ACA is pro-life, so the GOP should be in full support of it! But I’ll wait for the ridiculous talking points that you will be posting in the very near future.
I wish Bernie Sanders, Bezos, and Buffet would hurry up and just throw their weight and reputations around to push for universal healthcare already. The only people who don’t support it don’t understand it. We can all sit around and pretend that America is #1! but the rest of the world laughs at us for our political incompetence and healthcare idiocy. It wouldn’t even be hard to implement, it would make life better for 90% of Americans, and the only cost would be some billionaires have slimmer future profits.