One more Obamacare snafu

May 23, 2013
By Katy Grimes
There is yet one more snafu in the Obamacare health care law — paying for it.
The new federal health law, going into effect January 1, 2014, requires most Americans to carry health insurance. But this presents a challenge for the large number of “unbankable” Americans.
Most health plans accept a credit card for the first month’s premium payment and then require customers to pay monthly with a check or an electronic funds transfer from a checking account.
Those options won’t work for the “unbankables,” people who do not maintain a checking or savings account in a bank.
Kaiser Health News reports:
For ordinary Americans deemed unbankable, those who don’t have a traditional checking or savings account, it can be hard to simply pay bills. And that is about to become a big problem for those who also lack health coverage — and for the health insurance companies trying to sell them coverage. After all, how do you sell a product to a customer who has no way to pay you?
According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, one in five households in the United States, or about 51 million adults have only a tenuous relationship with a traditional bank, relying instead on check-cashing stores and money lenders.
No federal health laws including the Affordable Care Act, require health insurers to accept all forms of payment, including credit cards or the cash-loaded, pre-paid debit cards that people without bank accounts often rely on.
Not only is the payment issue gong to be a problem, can you imagine a person with no bank account trying to fill out what will be more than 60 screens on a computer application for the family?
This is just more evidence of the negligent haste under which the Obamacare law was passed — your tax dollars at work.
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I think we all know who is going to pay. Bend over!
ditto