Here's the latest post on theTeenLife Blog:
photo credit: Barack Obama via photopin cc
Sitting around my dining room table, my grandparents looking on with expressions of confusion and trepidation, with some of the worst hold music I’ve heard playing in the background, and that day’s luncheon sitting in our stomachs, we braved the private healthcare exchange.
What is Obamacare?
The Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, has so far been accompanied by a government shutdown and notorious technology errors that have become little more than late night comedy material. The law was heralded at its passing (by Democrats) as a victory for Americans without employer-provided healthcare. On the Republican side, it was considered a dangerous step toward socialized medicine. While the Democrats call it the keystone legislation of the Obama Administration (taking the name Obamacare to heart with pride), the Republicans have attempted to repeal the law over forty times, according to the Christian Science Monitor.
All this is well and good, but to many teenagers (and, frankly, to their parents), it represents little more than a bunch of political jargon and government gridlock. To be honest, it represents little more than that to me! But to my grandparents, this was a big deal. Now, let me clarify: this was not Obamacare itself, but a private healthcare exchange set up by my grandfather’s former employer under the new system of healthcare allowed by and provided for in the Affordable Care Act.
Previously, his healthcare expenses had been covered without question by his former employer, a large paper company. Now, the even larger paper company that had bought his employer after his retirement had created this private exchange for him and all of that company’s former employees. It was certainly a change, but hopefully it wouldn’t be too difficult for the five of us (including my grandparents, my parents, and myself) to comprehend and participate in, for his sake.
We spoke with two customer support people, the latter of whom – a friendly Houston man with a flowing, Texas accent – answered all of our questions (whether or not we liked the answers!) and proceeded to go through some of the best-fitting plans. Besides the confusion over the plans themselves, it was a rather pleasant experience. (“Let me open that right quick,” he said, regarding a prescription page.) It took awhile, nearly two hours, but it went well, and, in the end, he was signed up.
Fortunately, we were only negotiating a private exchange. For the 20 million people who have visited the site, only 500,000 were able to submit applications for healthcare, according to NBC News.
The same NBC article called HealthCare.gov, the website for Obamacare signup,”an excercise in frustration.” Much like the issue-plagued Common Application IV website (which has agonized high school seniors with ambiguous application submittal status results), Healthcare.gov has worried perspective insurees with slow-as-molasses page loading and a Spanish-language section that barely works at all.
But why does this matter to teens?
Sure, I want my grandparents as healthy as possible, and everyone should be able to sign up for insurance easily, but this is TeenLife.com, not a news outlet. Why is it relevant? Because the Affordable Care Act contains some very relevant provisions for those of us in between legal adulthood and secure employment after college.
According to the FAQ section of HealthCare.gov (which was working correctly), a family’s children “can be added [to] or kept on the health insurance policy until they turn 26 years old,” as long as the chosen plan covers children in the first place. This means that we can now retain healthcare coverage during and after college but before we can land a job with benefits or enough money to buy our own coverage on – I speculate - HealthCare.gov.
And for many adolescents, this type of legislation couldn’t come soon enough. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), 10.1% of teens aged 10-19 were uninsured in 2011; more than half of that amount lived under or just slightly above the poverty line*. Under the Affordable Care Act, those living at or below 133% of the poverty line (most of that aforementioned half) would be covered my Medicaid, an existing government program for those with very low incomes.
Obamacare also provides $200 million for school health centers in teenagers’ education centers. Notably, the Healthcare law provides for numerous preventitive screenings (for illnesses like cervical cancer) for teens, as well as $125 million for both abstinence-only and more comprehensive sexual education in an effort to prevent STDs and teen pregnancy.
These programs are set to make sure that teens stay healthier in many ways. That 26-year-old provision helps make sure that when insurance is necessary, it is still available for young adults.
So, no matter where you stand politically on the issue, the Affordable Care Act (despite its early growing pains) looks like it will work out well for those of us about to leave the nest.
*52.8% of uninsured 10-19 year olds lived at less than or equal to 138% of the Federal Poverty Line.
The post Teens and Obamacare: What’s New For You and Me? appeared first on TeenLife.