For our family it allowed our younger d to stay on our plan until she turned 26 as she was developing her path as an actor/singer. Her part time jobs did not offer any benefits. When she aged out she registered for the ACA and received a subsidy for a bare bones plan that truthfully she hasn’t had to use at all. She did however use the dental portion for a cleaning and check-up with a nice woman dentist in an immaculately clean office that did not cost her a penny. She uses Planned Parenthood for gynecology. She now has a full-time job with a major regional theater company and so her health care will be covered once she passed the 90 day employment mark, almost there.
If she hadn’t been covered through ACA we would have had to have some type of policy for her but never had to explore the options. Older d had finished grad school in another state prior to ACA and she wasn’t covered through either her work as an adjunct faculty or a the major cultural institutions that she worked at as part of a fellowship but we were able to get an individual plan for her at not a huge monthly expense that we of course had to pay for as neither of her salaries would have allowed her to pay herself. She now has a significant position at a cultural institution in NYC and her health benefits are covered.
ACA was great for us in allowing our kids to remain on family policy until aging out at 26. It also allowed us to consider what plans we could get for D when she aged off our plan, even with her pre-existing condition. All 4 of us in our household have pre-existing conditions.
We use employer based insurance, but it is crappy. We have a 5k deductible, so basicaly we pay out of pocket for most things. We did hit our deductible this year due to a couple of procedures. I dont like that many employers are opting for these high deductible plans, its almost as if you dont really have insurance. I also think something has to be done with Obamacare. Its great that a lot of folks now have insurance, but honestly the deductibles and monthly premiums can bankrupt you!
I wouldnt mind our employer based plan, if our monthly premiums werent high, but to have high monthly premiums, and a high deductible is ridiculous.
I had to pay out of pocket for most of my daughter’s medical expenses her first year out of college. She had preexisting medical problems so no one would insure her. Meds alone for that year was over 5K.
A year later the ACA came along. Just in time for her to have a major surgery covered.
My husband has insurance through a temporary job. When it ends he will need the ACA to cover until he reaches 65. 62 now.
Disregarding pre-existing conditions is the only big success of ACA. I don’t care much about parents covering children until 26. I don’t like to see the separation of care for elderly people from the rest of the population. Medicare part 1, medicare part 2, different drug plans,… these things are annoying and a headache for people like us, and they create bureaucracy and waste in the system. The system should treat every human being from inception to death the same way.
Prior conditions? I couldn’t be insured. Even with the most expensive plan that we got my meds alone are 450 for 2 months.
ONE of my is 450…I believe that we pay is higher than many pay for rent per month.
Have a kid with type 1 diabetes and a seizure disorder. Insurance companies hate type 1 diabetes! Also had a bad injury that cost $300k with ICU etc. Preexisting condition coverage is essential. In the past, we paid $13k in premiums and about $10k out of pocket for our family, which was about half our income at the time, but that is better than the alternative of no coverage.
Coverage of people with high expenses depends on people with low expenses signing up for insurance in the ACA. Penalties don’t deter people from abstaining. It worked in Massachusetts, but nationally people seem to be just staying out of the insurance system when healthy. People don’t realize anything can happen at any time.
Medicare insurance is expensive!!
The ACA made it possible for my son to get insurance he could afford.
I guess all the testimonials here put to lie the assertion that ACA was a terrible idea. It’s kinda like the line that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried.
That is like saying the maiden voyage of the Titantic was a great success because the musicians played on to the very end. As you can see from the Gallup poll, about 50 percent more Americans think the ACA has hurt them rather than helped them.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/195383/americans-negative-positive-aca.aspx
It’s not a terrible idea, but I am being forced to buy a plan that has ‘benefits’ I do not want or need. My insurance went up 33% in the last year changing from a PPO policy to a terrible EPO policy that has no benefits out of a narrow network and the website won’t even tell me just how narrow the network is because the list of providers isn’t there yet.
So no, I am not a happy camper.
^why not just go without then and save up on your own for medical emergencies? That way you couid go to any doctor you want.
My daughter had a real medical emergency two years ago that cost about $300,000. Not possible to save for that!
@thumper1, But that’s you, not Tatin.
But really, all those who hate it wont have very long to put up with it anyway.
I’d rather fix it than destroy it.
Yes, thumper, but you’d scrub floors to make sure your child had health insurance. That makes you quite different from many others who think it is unnecessary and a waste 
In our district, and a great many others, you cannot enroll your kids in a variety of programs without proof of insurance. Frankly, self-funding our own insurance and paying the penalty would be cheaper than ACA, but then it would severely restrict school activities.
@zinhead, that was your choice. You did not have to have it. You couid have explained to your children they would just have to find different activities to join that had no insurance requirement. You don’t need to have insurance to be in the school band or on the Debate team or Mathletes, for instance.
Not true for our district. If you want to travel with the high school debate team to the town next door, they won’t let you on the bus without proof of insurance.