The ACA Still Sucks and Walz Knows It

Those of you unfortunate enough to read me regularly know that I’m a part-time worker, and when my wife went part-time, we went from her excellent work health plan to a bronze plan on the exchange. So I’m going to start with my latest complaint, and then turn to Walz.

I just moved to Colorado from New York. Since my residency became active this month, I had to sign up for the ACA here via the Colorado exchange. That went pretty well, but when it came time to cancel my insurance on the New York exchange, the auto cancel on the exchange would only cancel through March 31, not today. That meant double premium payments (Colorado and New York), so I called my insurance carrier. After being transferred, I was informed that they couldn’t do anything, that I had to go through the exchange. Three more calls later, including one where the agent clearly didn’t understand anything and basically hung up on me, I have some form of appeal in that will maybe let me get out of paying for March in New York.

All of this for insurance that costs me a lot of money ($1300/mo) and basically has no coverage until sky-high deductibles are met. It’s medical bankruptcy insurance that lets me buy off of the insurance company’s contract.

Putting the insurance company into the middle of this mess was a policy-wonk-brain decision that I fully understand given the politics of the time, but I believe that Democrats derive far less political benefit from it that what we’re told. I think that Democrats need to start being honest about the ACA for middle-class folks who have no other insurance options: it sucks, and we want to change it.

In a world with a ton of remote work and gig labor, the number of contract employees is rising every day. These people are lower-middle-class or middle-class, and insurance for them is a nightmare. Why the hell would someone making, say, $80K/yr, want to pay for a do-nothing insurance policy even with premium support that takes it down to, say, $250/month. That’s a lot of money!

I realize the world is on fire and my bitching about the ACA may seem pointless. But the more I think about it, I’m interested in how Democrats can change, drastically, to win this country back. And at least one Democrat, Tim Walz, is thinking that way:

Here’s the whole interview on YouTube — I haven’t listened to it yet but I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it. Walz is a real talent, he was clearly muzzled at the debate, and we need to hear him unfiltered.