YOUR AD HERE »

Lienemann: I liked my healthcare plan, Mr. Udall, and, no, I couldn’t keep it

I am one of the 335,500 Coloradans receiving the “Dear John” health insurance cancellation letter that Obama and Udall, who pushed Obamacare, said couldn’t happen because if you liked your policy you could keep it. My cancelled policy stipulated I would bear the initial $10,000 in medical costs, then a 50% copay would be in effect for the next $7,500.00 in costs. My total out of pocket (OOP) was $13,750.00. I chose this very large OOP because I have good family medical history, drink very little and have never smoked. Barring a catastrophic injury, I was very likely never going to spend anything on medical care and my rates were under $3,000 a year.

So why did my insurance company drop me? Obama care thinks my deductible is too high to be affordable, so it cut my plan. Udall approved plans would decrease my OOP to between $6,000 to $6,350.00. This large reduction of $7,000 OOP sounds great doesn’t it? Guess what happened to my premium. It went from under $3,000 per year up to between $8781.48 and $9,167.28 depending on the plan (an increase of 305%).

But would I still be better off if I needed medical care and used up all of my OOP expenses? Combining premium and maximum OOP expenses, my private policy would have cost $16,665.00, Udall policy cost — $15,517.28. So you ask, what am I complaining about? Udall is a genius and saved me a thousand bucks a year! Or did he? One small detail Udall overlooked is that he forces me to spend $6,000 more every year for the same coverage whether I use it or not. In only 5 years, Udall guarantees I will be $30,000 poorer (providing rates would never go up in that time). To be fair, if I needed maximum medical coverage in all 5 years, I would save $5,000.



The odds however, are tiny that with my family and personal medical history I will ever maximize my OOP. And I should make that call, not Udall, who knows nothing about me.

All Udall and his liberals who rammed this Unaffordable Care Act down our throats can say is that I am a whiner and that we are all better off as a nation than before. But what neither he or liberals can do is tell me how I am more free, how my insurance is any better, or more affordable. If you find yourself forced into a more costly, inferior, Udall-compliant health plan, you have lost your freedom to choose a policy that actually works for you. Please vote for freedom, safety, intelligence and accountability — vote yes on Gardner.



Bob Lienemann

Frisco


Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

As a Summit Daily News reader, you make our work possible.

Summit Daily is embarking on a multiyear project to digitize its archives going back to 1989 and make them available to the public in partnership with the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. The full project is expected to cost about $165,000. All donations made in 2023 will go directly toward this project.

Every contribution, no matter the size, will make a difference.