The msnbc community has debated Obamacare--or, as it is officially known, the Affordable Care Act--since we launched the new site. We have included some of the comments that stood out to us here, what has your experience with the law been?
"I think what the government does not get,[is that] there are still millions of Americans, in the lower middle-class, who are mainly single people who make too much money too qualify for free health care and don't make anywhere near enough too afford healthcare!!! For instance I live on a bare bones budget like everyone else in this bracket, and in a month with a decent full time job I am still coming up short every month to pay necessary basic bills!! The government thinks by giving you tax credits, which you obviously DO NOT get until the end of the year are USELESS to the very tax bracket of people it was intended to help!!!! WE DO NOT HAVE the fifty dollars or the two or three hundred dollars to initially shell out!! WE JUST DON'T HAVE IT!!!! And this what the government does not get!!!"'
"My wife has a pre-existing condition. The company I work for does not offer health insurance. Last year the only way I could get my wife covered was to create my own one man company so that I could get group insurance at $2,986 per month. With the new health care, I get better coverage for the same family "group" under an individual family plan for $1,820 per month with a much lower deductible and out of pocket. Obamacare certainly worked for me."'
"Last year I was covered under my work plan, but it was useless. The deductible and the premiums were roughly equal to my yearly salary. Medication had a separate own $500 deductible. My husband, who has COPD, could afford to see the doctor (at $40 a pop) because the dr visits were covered outside of the deductible but not get any of the tests the specialist needed to treat him. Under Obamacare, our plan has no deductible, a $3 copay and a 10% coinsurance. I save about $70/month on the meds. We have insurance we can afford to use. Thank you President Obama, for believing we all have a right to good, affordable health care!!"'
"I am an employee of a technology consulting firm. I provide services to one of their pharmaceutical clients. I became a "permatemp" when my job along with others was sent to the Phillipines. When I started 4 yrs ago, my health insurance was $382.00 per month just for me. The next year they changed providers and it went down to $282.00. In Feb of this year they notified us of Obamacare, set up the annual open enrollment and they changed providers again - this time the same coverage was $686. I dropped the coverage completely. I was already struggling trying to live on my salary ($45k after deductions and health insurance) here in NJ. I went to the "wonderful" Obamacare site to obtain info on my options. There were none because I'm not poor and my employer offers coverage. I'll pay the penalty during tax time and with continued effort, find a direct full-time job with an employer that is not a temp agency. In the meantime, I just look forward to President Obama leaving office. Having him in office has been far too painful for too many people in this country."'
"I have been self employed most of my life . I was independently in Blue Cross for 35 years and about three years ago developed blood clots in my right calf. which were successfully cleared. Not long after that I got dumped by Blue Cross which claimed I asked to be removed. Like a fool I did not protest that thinking I could do better elsewhere. Elsewhere led me to two years in the wilderness with a high risk pool that did little but cost a lot. Late last fall, I got my family enrolled in the ACA. I'm now on Anthem and had a wellness check some weeks back at which it was caught that I now am in Atrial Fibrillation. That in turn led me to a heart echo which in turn is leading me to a cardiologist, a rariety in the rural northeast. Without the ACA, this would never have happened. I was asymptomatic and remain so but my heart rate is under control with meds while the docs discuss electrical conversion. If there was ever a death panel, it existed in the form of bad insurance being sold for high prices that give one a false sense of security with next to no real coverage. I think I'll live a while, maybe not as long as I had hoped but that's really my fault. The ACA has done a lot of good for me so far and it is watching over my family as well."'
"I know of two people who decided to enroll in the ACA. One had symptoms of possible colon cancer but could not afford the colonoscopy to determine. My son told him to enroll in the ACA, He was then able to see a doctor, have the colonoscopy and get on the road to better health. Another friend of my son's enrolled and on January 2nd went to a doctor for the first time and was diagnosed with a medical which prior to the ACA may have cost him his life. My sister died at age 42 due to recurrent breast cancer. Her ex-husband had taken her off of insurance, despite her cancer history. I tried to get insurance for her but couldn't because of her pre-existing conditions. I would have emptied all of my savings to get insurance for her but couldn't afford the medical treatments she needed. Had the ACA been in place 11 years ago, my sister might be alive today."'
"The main thing for me was that being a woman was no longer going to be a pre-existing condition for me. The fact that I’m a woman shouldn’t affect whether or not I pay more for insurance, which is just ridiculous."'
"As you're aging, I'm 58, I think advancing years plus pre-existing conditions made me not very attractive. This turned out to be a boom for me."'