•June 15, 2016•

By Trudy Lieberman
Rural Health News Service

An Indiana couple who wrote to me a few weeks ago has experienced the ups and downs of Obamacare, and they wanted me to know about one downside they now face---a monthly premium of $836.

“No one should have to pay those high premiums unless you’re considered high class, and we aren’t,” the woman said.

The couple-she is 59 and he is 62-are self-employed, and their income fluctuates. At first the Affordable Care Act was, a “godsend,” the woman told me. Before they signed up for Obamacare, they were paying almost $1,000 a month for insurance coverage. Then they bought an Obamacare policy, a Gold plan Anthem sold on the Indiana shopping exchange. It was a good policy with a relatively low deductible, low copays and coinsurance costing about $1,435. Best of all, they qualified for a subsidy.

Their income that year was low, between $23,000 and $28,000. That entitled them to a subsidy of around $1,200, leaving them to pay only about $235, which they could easily swing. Recall that subsidies are intended to help those with the lowest incomes, and because their income was low, their subsidy was generous.

Then, as the economy started to improve, their income went up, but their subsidy went down. As they’re supposed to do, the family regularly reports income changes to the government so they don’t get stuck with a gigantic bill at the end of the year, money they would owe for subsidies they were not entitled to.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.