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thePeorian.com
The Present
W
ith the Affordable
Care Act, aka Obam-
acare, taking effect in
January 2014 for individuals and
in 2015 for employers, support,
criticism and worry have sprung
up amongst some in the Peoria
area.
The ACA was passed in
2009
and stated all citizens
of the United States must
have private health insur-
ance or health insurance
provided by a govern-
ment program or an
employer by Jan. 1, 2014.
Anyone who does not
have insurance by next
year will have to pay
a fine. The first year it
will be 1 percent of their
income or $95, whichever
is higher, and then it will go up
every year; in 2016 it will be 2.5
percent of your income or $695
a year.
A primary goal of the act was
to allow people who cannot
usually get accepted by insur-
ance companies to get insured,
no matter the health or finan-
cial status of the person, and to
provide them with a new Health
Insurance Marketplace with more
options.
The new marketplace is being
aimed at the middle class, but an
expanded version of Medicaid
has been developed as well, for
those with less income. More
information about the changes to
Medicaid can be found at www.
medicaid.gov.
Even though the ACA has
met with a lot of support, it has
detractors from within the gov-
ernment and also from everyday
citizens.
“
I thought it was entirely too
ambitious and it did not ad-
dress the issues at hand,” said
Tim Wyman, president of The
Wyman Group in Peoria. “It ad-
dressed the symptoms instead of
the issues, (which is not access
but cost control).”
Wyman said another part of
the problem is no one goes with-
out health care — those lacking
insurance will still be taken to an
emergency room if he or she gets
in an accident — but many peo-
ple are going without preventive
care. This is an important aspect
of the issue because
many naysayers of the
mandatory insurance
policy say they do not
want to be forced to
get it when they are
perfectly healthy.
Both Josh Ryan
and Edward Burmila,
assistant professors
of political science at
Bradley University,
agreed, however, that
you cannot always
predict when you are going to get
sick and uninsured people going
to the ER costs the individual, the
hospitals and the taxpayers more
money.
“
That kind of health care can
be extremely expensive and at
that point, other people are going
to end up paying for the hospital
writing off the cost of caring for
you,” Burmila said. “So, it’s not
really just an ‘every man is an
island’ sort of thing.”
GETTING READY FOR
OBAMACARE
Individuals must have health coverage by Jan. 1
By Tim Rosenberger
Clifford Clark, a self-employed house painter, cannot
afford to get health insurance at today’s rates and is
looking forward to the Affordable Care Act.
