Your Turn: Paying the price for individual mandate repeal

Thanks to Rep. Claudia Tenney’s vote to sabotage the Affordable Care Act in the form of the individual mandate repeal, millions of Americans — including myself — are seeing significant increases in our premiums.

The GOP Congress has hurt thousands of middle-class Americans in exchange for a tax cut to line the pockets of corporations and our richest Americans. For months ahead of the vote, we warned Republican lawmakers that repealing the individual mandate would strip thousands of their health insurance and cause premiums to skyrocket for the rest, and yet they ignored our pleas and charged ahead.

Now we’re paying for it. Last month, those of us in the individual marketplace received letters informing us of the premium increases requested by our insurers for 2019. The statewide average increase is a whopping 24 percent! This can easily mean an extra $100 per month. Fully half of this increase is due solely to the repeal of the individual mandate. The meager tax cuts we received will quickly be eaten up by higher health care costs. And premium increases this large will force more people out of the marketplace and could destabilize it entirely.

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Even though my premium increase is lower than average, I receive no subsidies, so I am not protected from premium increases at all. I also have a high deductible and high co-pays, and I do not receive any cost-sharing reductions — even my out-of-pocket costs are completely out of my own pocket. These premium increases hit hardest at those of us in the middle class who pay for our own insurance.

What Tenney fails to understand is that for millions of Americans like myself, the Affordable Care Act is the single most important piece of legislation that has brought peace and security into our lives. Two years ago, I had a heart attack and bypass surgery. I had over $200,000 in medical bills. My ACA policy saved me from financial ruin with its out-of-pocket maximum of $6,000.

Even after I was healed, the ACA continued to serve my health and well-being. When I entered the market to buy insurance in 2017, I still had affordable options, as I was protected from being charged more because of my pre-existing conditions. Without that protection, there is no telling how much I would have had to pay — it’s possible I would not have been able to get insurance at all.

Ironically, Tenney was a candidate who ran on a platform that promised to support the forgotten middle class in America. Yet instead of serving her constituents, she continually tries to sabotage our access to affordable health care, her votes forcing many to choose between paying bills and affording life-saving care.

Politicians like Claudia Tenney are gambling with human lives in order to serve the interests of their big money political donors. It’s time to fight for our right to health care and to hold Claudia Tenney accountable.

Michael Hermann is a Vestal resident.