I am an educated (BS Chemistry & Biology / BSCE / MIT) professional who works as a contractor in the Information Technology (IT) industry. Some of my friends ask me why I prefer contracting to working as a full time employee in the IT industry. My answer to them is the industry changes dynamically about every 18 months and working as a contractor enables me to get the professional experience required to keep my IT skills and knowledge current and remain viable as a senior consulting IT professional. One significant drawback to being a contractor here in the US is the availability and affordability of healthcare insurance for individuals. I started working as a contractor in 1999. The availability of healthcare insurance for individuals at that time was a big issue. It was very hard to find a healthcare insurance policy for an individual family. After an extensive search I did find healthcare insurance for my family at the time. The premiums were high with high deductibles dictated by preexisting health conditions, yearly and lifelong coverage caps, and my coverage was canceled after the first significant claim was made.
The “Affordable Care Act” (ACA) or ObamaCare solved the availability issue for me these past 2 years. The monthly insurance premiums are expensive but I can get insurance without being exposed to yearly and lifelong coverage caps, limitations to preexisting conditions, and having the insurance policy canceled after the first claim is made. However, availability is being limited by providers because they are not offering policies on the ACA healthcare exchanges and the policies that are being offered are starting to look like those available in 1999. The insurance industry is attempting to kill the ACA so that they can make more money!
Using the ACA exchanges to purchase commercial healthcare insurance from providers was the compromise the Democrats made to get the insurance industry and healthcare industry lobbyists on-board with the ACA and to try and get a few Republicans in the Senate to vote for the ACA. No Republican support was provided for the ACA. The insurance industry saw all of the new customers that would purchase insurance through the exchanges as a way to expand their revenue base and profit levels even if the profit margins were lower. The problem was and is that many individuals went for years not having their healthcare issues addressed because they didn’t have healthcare insurance. Now that they are able to get insurance they are trying to take care of these issues. These people are usually small business owners or individual contractors, like myself, who are older (35 to 60). This is driving up the front-end cost of insuring this group end hurting the profits of healthcare insurance companies.
I think that the Hillary Clinton campaign should address issues with the ACA directly now. The Republicans have tried to kill the ACA for the past 6 years and have done nothing to address ACA issues and change it to be more effective. Their mode of operation isn’t going to change without the public demanding the ACA be changed. The Clinton campaign should take the lead on this now by proposing to extend Medicare program coverage to people 50 years and older. These individuals would have to pay premiums to Medicare for the coverage they receive so it isn’t fee healthcare insurance from the federal government. This solves the current ACA problem in to 2 ways. It will provide coverage for the older population of people getting insurance through the ACA which addresses the availability. The increases in the cost of insuring this population is offset because the overhead costs of Medicare is less than 5% while commercial healthcare insurance providers are allowed to operate with overhead costs up to 20%. Medicare coverage also consolidates this group into a single pool allowing Medicare to obtain better pricing for services provided which will further lower the cost Medicare insurance premiums for the people covered.