Hey, what’s up freelancers, poors and other people who used to have health insurance. Did you guys enjoy purchasing health insurance from an online exchange that actually worked? We know we did. You know who didn’t enjoy you doing that was the New York State Senate’s Republican/weird Democratic friends majority, who are now trying to defund the exchange, because they want to prove they’re as crazy and obstructionist as their counterparts in Washington, DC.
Laura Nahmias from Capital New York reports that the budget resolution for 2014 coming out of the State Senate has a provision defunding the state health exchange. Nahmias points out that State Senate originally didn’t even allow a health exchange to be set up, which caused Andrew Cuomo to go around them and set one up by executive order. Man, every time we’re angry at that guy we need to remember how bad things could be without him.
It’s a useless political stunt and won’t actually happen, but it’s a nice reminder of what could happen if Republicans wind up running the state. There’s no reason given for trying to kill the health exchange, leaving us to speculate that helping the uninsured actually get insurance makes conservatives physically ill. Anyway, just your occasional reminder that New York’s state government is a useless snakepit and someone should do a serious study on the feasibility on New York City secession.
View Comments (5)
Uhhh, like you know you people actually bought health insurance before there were any "exchanges"?
And that it was actually easier to do (and the policies had better coverage)?
I mean, the whole "exchange" thing was nothing more than a marketing exercise to appeal to young slackers who can't relate to anything outside of iTunes and have to be talked to like children it seems.
if you weren't a dumbass, you'd know that you can still buy insurance directly from insurance companies, you just won't get any subsidies. they aren't defunding the website, they want to defund the subsidies that allow people who were unable to afford insurance at all before.
yea...you're right. the coverage is pretty bad and way more expensive than it used to be when you could just buy it out of pocket. After college, I was working a crappy job and had Healthy New York coverage for a little under $200 per month and it was surprisingly good insurance.
if you were eligible for healthy New York, you're now eligible for Medicaid, which is $0 a month.
no, they upped Medicaid to allow people making about $14,000 per year to qualify.
If you make more than that, you have to purchase one of the new plans.