stevenpiziks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stevenpiziks) wrote2025-12-16 09:33 pm
stevenpiziks) wrote2025-12-16 09:33 pm
Looming Explosion
The end of the ACA subsidies is looming. A lot of people are worried--rightly--that their insurance costs will go up thousands and thousands of dollars per year. Or per MONTH. But there are other horrors coming down the pipe.
There are patients starting chemo now who won't finish the treatments before January 1. Those on ACA insurance won't be able to afford to see it through.
There are pregnant women who are due in January and who will face thousands and thousands of dollars in hospital bills right after the baby is born. Those who have complications will face even higher bills.
There are children in long-term care wards in hospitals whose parents won't be able to afford treatment after January 1.
There are people waiting for life-saving surgery who were scheduled for January and now won't be able to afford it.
There are people in hospice, or who will enter hospice soon, whose heirs will have to deal with the bills to the estate after the person passes away.
There are people who need regular doses of medicine to stay alive (insulin, for example) whose costs will leap so high, their families will have to choose whether to buy medicine for their loved one or buy food and housing. Some of those people are children. ("Without insurance, Carrie's meds will cost more than our rent. If we buy the meds, our entire family will be homeless. If we pay the rent, we'll watch Carrie die. What do we do?")
This will happen on January 1. It won't be gradual. There won't be a one-week or two-week period of ramping up as people gradually lose their insurance because they can't pay it and then go without medical care. No, it will start =immediately.= There are people who are alive now who won't make it to February. There are children who will open presents on Christmas morning and be dead by mid-January.
This isn't a slow crisis. This is a building explosion. When it goes off, people will die.
There are patients starting chemo now who won't finish the treatments before January 1. Those on ACA insurance won't be able to afford to see it through.
There are pregnant women who are due in January and who will face thousands and thousands of dollars in hospital bills right after the baby is born. Those who have complications will face even higher bills.
There are children in long-term care wards in hospitals whose parents won't be able to afford treatment after January 1.
There are people waiting for life-saving surgery who were scheduled for January and now won't be able to afford it.
There are people in hospice, or who will enter hospice soon, whose heirs will have to deal with the bills to the estate after the person passes away.
There are people who need regular doses of medicine to stay alive (insulin, for example) whose costs will leap so high, their families will have to choose whether to buy medicine for their loved one or buy food and housing. Some of those people are children. ("Without insurance, Carrie's meds will cost more than our rent. If we buy the meds, our entire family will be homeless. If we pay the rent, we'll watch Carrie die. What do we do?")
This will happen on January 1. It won't be gradual. There won't be a one-week or two-week period of ramping up as people gradually lose their insurance because they can't pay it and then go without medical care. No, it will start =immediately.= There are people who are alive now who won't make it to February. There are children who will open presents on Christmas morning and be dead by mid-January.
This isn't a slow crisis. This is a building explosion. When it goes off, people will die.