Income Impacts Health

Someday you must have heard your parents complain about how insurance has been eating away at their income. They are probably complaining about health insurance companies and how they confiscate absurd amounts of money from their wallet. Popular health insurance companies such as Aetna, Anthem, United Health, and others, require a family of four to pay up to $1,500 per month. For someone that works a minimum wage job, they pay their entire wage to live. Not only that but it is important to remember that families which are considered low-income end up needing health care the most. The high rates of mental illnesses, sicknesses, and diseases that appear in these communities make it vital to have health insurance for every family. The heart-breaker for most impoverished families is that they need to pay up to $8,000 worth of deductibles before being accessible to get extra costs covered by the insurance company themselves. Other plans that are provided by companies end up being far too expensive for these families to afford but they would be more beneficial for low-income families. The higher plans offered are bought by the top 1% which essentially means that the rich have to pay less and the poor have to pay more. The underprivileged deserve access to better health care plans and the only way that the unreasonable prices have been combated is through the efforts of Obamacare.

How Healthcare Works:

Health insurance companies require the consumer to pay a certain fee per month to the company directly and a deductible amount before they can qualify for coverage plans. Most companies have different tiers that come with certain benefits. Most plans start at the bronze tier and end at the Platinum tier. Platinum tends to be for people who can pay $700+ per month as the starting fee and the bronze tier tends to be for lower-income consumers. The way these plans work makes it so that whoever signs up for the lower tier plans, they are always struggling most as they also end up paying more than $8,000 before being eligible for coverage, whereas the Platinum users only have to pay $200 before being eligible for coverage. Other plans known as job-based insurance, include HMO (health maintenance organization), PPO (preferred provider organization), EPO (exclusive provider organization), and POS (point of service). These plans are offered by the company that a consumer works at. HMO plans are the least flexible when it comes to where a consumer can receive coverage from an insurance company and POS plans are the most flexible. Each insurance company has partnerships with certain hospitals and other care services meaning that consumers can get a discount on prescriptions if the place they go to is in their network.

The Circumstance:

The most common illnesses, diseases, and other medical problems in low-income societies tend to be cancers, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. The average cost of cancer treatment comes up to $48,000 annually and for diabetes, the annual treatment ends up being $5,705. These two are the most popular illnesses and they come at shocking treatment costs. Low-income families are forced to pay more for health care so they can survive but on top of that, they have to pay for treatments with very high fees. No matter which way you look at it, the poor always have it the worst. Even with certain cost cuts which are offered by the government, low-income families can never get out of the infinite loop of getting their paycheck from three or four jobs per parent and spending all of it on insurance and taxes. ‘

Obamacare’s Impact:

The goal of Obamacare was to be another competitor in the healthcare business and to act as a better option for lower-income families or in general a better option for any family. This company was run by the government and specifically through President Obama (hence the name). However, by the end of Obama’s presidency, the company started to fall apart because it could not sustain itself because of poor revenue. But for the time that it lasted, Obamacare was used to its full potential by the lower class. Prices start from $328 and go up to a maximum of $411. The reason why Obamacare could not get enough revenue despite having 35 million customers sign up for the program is that some doctors disliked the program as it made it hard for them to keep records organized and the frequent price changes made it uncomfortable for them. Obamacare was able to start under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the goal of it was for all medication prices to go down little by little and eventually be affordable for all. Obamacare could have succeeded with two more years of work but that was cut short once Donald Trump scrapped the program.