TO:

Professor Gallardo

FROM:

Sabina Appelzoller RWS 1301 Student

DATE:

September 10, 2015

RE:

Signing up for Obamacare

Professor Gallardo:
To reform the health care industry the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA),
commonly referred to as ACA or Obamacare, was signed into law by President Barrack Obama
on March of 2010, and was upheld by the Supreme Court in June of 2014. As of now it is
required by law to have health coverage by an insurance policy if not you will be penalized with
the individual mandate fee each year for not complying with the ACA.
To apply for coverage you must go to a Health Insurance Marketplace (online comparison
websites). Some states even have their own state specific Marketplace set up. For those states
who have not set up their own Marketplace (Texas in our case) you will be using the general
Health Insurance Marketplace website, www.healthcare.gov . You must apply for health
insurance during this years open enrollment from November 1, 2015 January 30, 2016. If you
did not obtain health insurance during the open enrollment you will be mandated to pay a fine.
The following statistics sum up how the 318 million people in America will experience having
health care coverage generally in one of four ways. These are having health coverage by your
employer, the government, buying your own, or having no coverage at all. One half of the
American people will get coverage by their job, one third will get coverage by the government
with Medicaid or Medicare, one tenth will buy their own insurance themselves, and a little under
one tenth about 30 million of the American people, will unfortunately still remain uncovered.
Those who can afford health insurance but choose not to buy health insurance will be expected to
pay the individual mandate fee (penalty). The fee for not having health care coverage in 2015 is
given by two methods and you will pay the higher amount of these two amounts. Either 2% of
your yearly household income or $325 per person and $162.50 per child per year. With the
maximum penalty per family being $975 if using the second method. Those who did not buy
health insurance because they cannot afford it, but also still cannot afford to pay the penalty can
apply for a health care coverage exemption given for conditions that fall under a hardship
category like, being homeless, experienced eviction or foreclosure, received a shutoff notice
from a utility company, experienced domestic violence, etc.

Obamacare will provide new benefits, rights, and protections. Some benefits include free
preventative care, OB-GYN care without referrals, free or reduced prescription drugs, free birth
control and vaccines. Now young adults can remain under their parents plan until the age of 26.
At least 28 states have expanded their Medicare and Medicaid coverages and now more people
can be covered by it. Some protections include that insurance companies cannot deny you
coverage or charge you extra for your health status like having a previous condition. Gender
discrimination in prices will now be prevented also.
You will be paying your insurance premium monthly so it works to your benefit to inform
yourself about your health care coverage in order to take advantage of the Obamacare reform.
Once again the official Health Insurance Marketplace website, www.healthcare.gov can answer
any more of your questions.

Thank You.
Sabina Appelzoller
UTEP RWS 1301 Student
skappelzoller@miners.utep.edu

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