The health care you receive and how you pay for it are critical issues for you if you are an obese patient, a weight loss surgery patient, or a potential patient. How will you be affected when some provisions of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) come into effect in 2014?

Mark your answer and let us know how you feel in the conversation below! Also, feel free to ask questions and discuss Obamacare – we can all stand to learn something!

This is hard for me to answer. It is good that I can purchase insurance for about $50 a month when before I could not afford coverage at all and most would have denied me because I had a past tumor that caused me to have a hip replacement. WLS is not covered in PA so I will have to be self pay regardless. It's nice that I will have coverage if anything happens afterwards. I know they are supposed to cover pre existing conditions but I wonder what they will do if you have insurance then go to Mexico to get the surgery then have complications since you were already under plan with them.

Alex...there is not an option in the poll for me. Because I do like it. But it does affect me negatively...my health care costs have gone up (but what else is new....they go up every year anyway). However, I'm willing to pay the extra costs because I know on the whole it's going to have a positive affect on the country.

Alex...there is not an option in the poll for me. Because I do like it. But it does affect me negatively...my health care costs have gone up (but what else is new....they go up every year anyway). However, I'm willing to pay the extra costs because I know on the whole it's going to have a positive affect on the country.

I'm lucky that my costs have decreased. I feel similarly and would have been ok with a slight increase, just for the sake of everyone having medical coverage. I'm going to add another option shortly, thanks!

I just signed up for a new health insurance plan on the New York state health exchange. I'm saving over $300 per month. Have a $0 deductible (I had a $2000 deductible previously). My new plan includes full dental and vision coverage (which I never had previously). My new co-pays are almost non-existent (I had high co-pays previously). All in all I have much better coverage for a lot less than I was previously receiving. The only caveat with my new plan is that I can't go out of their network. They offer zip, zero, zilch if I go to a doc out of network. Thankfully every single doc I use happens to be a member of my new plan. I'm willing to stay in-network if this is the tradeoff. All in all, I'm very very pleased with the new Healthcare coverage!

Congrats )

Glad you're happy )

I'm very pleased too )

Edited December 24, 201312 yr by Tropical.Lover

Alex...there is not an option in the poll for me. Because I do like it. But it does affect me negatively...my health care costs have gone up (but what else is new....they go up every year anyway). However, I'm willing to pay the extra costs because I know on the whole it's going to have a positive affect on the country.

Fourth option added.

No change for me other than I will now have to do more "mail in" prescriptions if I have maintenance drugs I have Tricare Prime which is not affected YET.

Like making the decision for WLS, there is a lot of research and information to be gathered before this decision is made. A vast majority of people are getting better services, for what many are finding is a better deal in the long run. When I hear lots of horror stories I question the facts… Just like WLS...

My premiums have increased each of the last three years as the insurance company has complied with mandates of the Obamacare plan.

In my opinion the real monetary impact will be felt next year, when employers have to comply with the insurance mandate. Employers will have to decide to insure workers or not. This will likely depend on the cost of insurance available to the employer vs. paying fines for not offering insurance. Larger employers are self insured, so it is not a big issue for them. However smaller employers depend on what plans are available to them in the state where they do business.

If the employer decides to offer insurance, the employee can pay up to 9.5% of their income towards the premium cost and be considered affordable. If the employer offers a qualified, affordable plan; the employee has to take it. Employees will not be able to go to an exchange where premium costs may or may not be lower. If my employer decides to charge me 9.5% of my income in premium costs, my cost of insurance premiums will triple on an annual basis.

I am not a fan. Our insurance premiums are costing almost 6K per year more! For less coverage. I don't mind paying a bit more to help cover costs but this is insane. I do not like the fact that so many people were dumped from their plans and are now forced to purchase plans they don't like or need. The whole "if you like your plan, you can keep your plan" thing still makes me angry. He knew that people would get kicked off their plans because they don't meet the requirements under Obamacare and he kept saying it anyway.

We won't know for some time if this will work, not many young, healthy people are buying the higher plans. That is what needs to happen to succeed. Health insurance companies have been raising rates at nightmarish pace to try and recoup some of the start up costs associated with Obamacare.

Lost our wonderful plan at work. It happened to be a "Cadillac" plan and it was too good, so it had to be dropped. Now we chose the catastrophic plan with high deductible and a HSA that I will fully fund. Does pick-up in full a yearly physical/labs and mammo. rather wise am very healthy ( thanks to the sleeve) and hope to stay away from needing a doctor this coming year. can't wait to see what else is in the law.--REMEMBER-they had to "pass the law to find out what's in it"--Not looking good so far. I'm becoming a gambler--gambling that my health stays good. Good Luck all Linda

Lost our wonderful plan at work. It happened to be a "Cadillac" plan and it was too good, so it had to be dropped. Now we chose the catastrophic plan with high deductible and a HSA that I will fully fund. Does pick-up in full a yearly physical/labs and mammo. rather wise am very healthy ( thanks to the sleeve) and hope to stay away from needing a doctor this coming year. can't wait to see what else is in the law.--REMEMBER-they had to "pass the law to find out what's in it"--Not looking good so far. I'm becoming a gambler--gambling that my health stays good. Good Luck all Linda

I wish you the best !!!!

I am going to have much better insurance with more coverage and less deductible and co pays. It's going to cost less than half of what I am paying now.

My option is not included in the poll...the ACA doesn't apply to me, I am on Medicare...we have our OWN problems.

My option is not included in the poll...the ACA doesn't apply to me, I am on Medicare...we have our OWN problems.

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Why does this thread keep showing up as unread in my subscribed folder....even though no new posts have been added? Is it because someone voted?