Mini-Rant on one of Obamacare's flaws
Whoever decided it was not permissible to use the Advance Tax Credit on catastrophic health plans (the cheapest option) should be smacked in the face with a heavy object. What. The. FUCK. I don't really need anything but the annual physical! Why is that a thing? My Advance Tax Credit was about $230. The cheapest bronze plan (the cheapest option after catastrophic) was over $300. On paper, I'm over twice the "poverty line" (which should be set at $30,000 in places like where I live, where renting a single room for $1000 is considered a bargain), but in reality, how the flying fuck am I supposed to come up with $70 a month? Many of the catastrophic plans are under $200 a month. Why can't they just have it so you can use it on a catastrophic plan and thus have a free plan after the credit is applied... but you forfeit whatever's left over? Certainly fairer than expecting me to miraculously find an extra $70 a month, or having the IRS fine me because I can't reasonably be expected to come up with that living where I live. It's not like I can "just move" either, that would require finding a job willing to hire someone who isn't a local and who needs a Skype interview because they lack extra money to spend on air fare to in-person interviews. THAT is a rarity.
I don't think it fair that healthy people under 30 who are too "rich" for Medicaid, never mind that the poverty line is an arbitary figure that doesn't even try to take into account where someone lives, should be forced into a more expensive bronze plan. (I also think people older than 30 should be allowed to have the catastrophic plan for as long as they never need the doctor for more than routine, minor and common problems- and that those with more severe health issues should NOT be financially wrecked because of it. Actually, I am a strong supporter of universal health care that is covered in taxes- and a flat tax rate across the board no matter how rich someone is, or if they receive UI (just an FYI to the masses who don't know this for some reason, UI *is* taxed, hard to qualify for, and no, you cannot collect UI for voluntarily quitting) but that's another issue entirely. A billionaire should have to pay the same percentage of income as someone making $15k a year, no less and no more. Oh, and the exemptions? I remember being denied a tax cut because the few hundred dollars I'd donated over the year was not $5000 (if I remember the flat figure correctly. I may be confusing it with another flat figure. It was definitely a flat figure, I'll use it as an example.) Um? $5000 for someone making what I make is a significant percentage, too high to afford. As for a billionaire, that's barely a drop in the bucket. "Here, $5000 to the American Cancer Society, there's my donation out of my $1,000,000,000 or the year, give me my tax cut." And they get it, for something much less than one percent of their income! This is fair HOW?
NOTE: My point of view here is NY-centric because that's the state I'm from. The state which includes NYC and Long Island, places with the dubious honor of the extremely high cost of living and a lack of jobs that pay enough and offer enough hours for people to have financial security. A place where someone who makes almost $30,000 a year- with a part-time job, because she has gotten lucky enough to have a part-time job with a high enough hourly rate to make more than a minimum-wage full time worker (that's a sign minimum wage needs to be raised, by the way. I do not WANT to be part-time, I want to be full-time in my profession, and I do not think it right that I make more working 15 hours than a minimum wage worker covering 45 hours a week- even if I have a Masters and they never did college. And ESPECIALLY those who have Bachelors' or Masters' degrees but still have to do minimum wage because they are not fortunate enough to be in an area where other options exist and are unable to relocate. But now I'm digressing and rambling and just might sound like a raving lunatic)
