Woman celebrated as Obamacare success story gets hit with unaffordable rate raises

Thursday, November 28, 2013 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: Obamacare, unaffordable rates, success story

(NaturalNews) She went from the administration's hero to zero with the click of a mouse.

Once touted by the White House as an Obamacare success story, Jessica Sanford has now discovered that, no, she won't be able to afford new health insurance coverage, thanks to the very law that President Obama said would make it "affordable."

"Jessica Sanford was cited by the president as an Obamacare success story at a health care event he had here at the White House in the Rose Garden on October 21," says a reporter for CNN, reporting from the White House. "That of course being just last month. The 48-year-old single mom from Washington state purchased what she considered to be affordable health care -- a life-changing event, she said -- on the Washington state health exchange. She decided she was so excited about this news, she wanted to write an e-mail to the president to say that this had really changed her life and that she was thankful for the Afforable Care Act. The president included her e-mail in his remarks to people on hand for the event. Here's a bit of what the president had to say."

At the press event, Obama summarized the email:

I recently received a letter from a woman named Jessica Sanford in Washington state. And here's what she wrote, "I am a single mom, no child support, self-employed, and I haven't had insurance for 15 years because it's too expensive. I was crying the other day when I signed up, so much stress lifted."

Oops!

But, CNN reported, "[D]ays, just really three days after she was mentioned by the president, Jessica Sanford started having problems, she was receiving letters from the Washington state health exchange.

"The first letter telling her that [the] tax credit was reduced, therefore increasing the cost of her health care plan and, take a look at this, then she received a letter just last week telling her that her tax credit had been taken away altogether. Show you another document here, showing what the tax credit worked out to be... zero dollars according to this document that was provided to us by Jessica Sanford. She describes all of this as a roller coaster ride, because now she says she can't afford insurance in Washington state because of these new developments."

In short, Obamacare screwed her, too.

After her ordeal, Sanford told CNN she was embarrassed by it all.

"It was a huge disappointment, and especially since I had, you know, my story had been shared by the president," she said. "I felt like, you know, I just felt really embarrassed that, you know, he had quoted my story and then come to find that the Washington health plan finder, the website here in our state, had grossly miscalculated or they're having a problem figuring their tax credits. And so at least for right now, I don't -- I'm not going to be getting insurance," she said.

The law's problems are only going to get worse, America

And neither will tens of millions more Americans.

Sanford did not have insurance, but scores who did are losing their coverage as well, thanks to Obamacare's extremist minimum coverage standards. Because of the law, Americans are going to be forced to buy coverage for things they don't want and/or have never needed (like maternity coverage for young men).

Right now, only those with private plans are losing them. But soon, tens of millions more Americans - those with employer-provided coverage - will lose theirs as well, because those plans don't meet minimum coverage requirements either. Employers will simply have to offer the additional coverage - at greater expense to both company and employee - or drop employee coverage altogether and dump employees into the loathsome state exchanges.

Sanford's experience is hardly unique, but it highlighted all that is wrong with Obamacare on a national stage - thanks to the president himself.

Sources:

http://www.weeklystandard.com

http://newday.blogs.cnn.com

http://www.foxnews.com