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Kristin Perpignano is a freelance graphic designer and writer living in central Maine.
I received the urgent care bill about a week before Christmas. I’d visited the clinic after tripping in front of my house the month before. The fall, which I attribute to being naturally clumsy and wearing outrageously inappropriate shoes for a woman pushing 53 in icy central Maine, was a hard one. I landed on my side and lost my breath for a second, so I decided to get an X-ray just to be sure I hadn’t broken a rib. I had.
The bill was for $128, which was what I still owed after my copay of $55 was applied, and after my insurance covered their part.
Fine, I thought. I’ll deal with it after the holiday.
I’m used to getting bills like this, sharp little barbs reminding me that my Anthem Silver Plan, for which my husband and I were, until recently, paying $800 a month for, provides limited coverage at best. But, I told myself, at least we had coverage.
The Affordable Care Act had made it possible for us to start our own small businesses, a dream we were finally able to make a reality in 2012. Before the ACA, we got our health coverage through our previous employers, large companies to which we were beholden 40 hours a week, 50 weeks a year. But going freelance has allowed us to enjoy the flexibility and independence that comes with working for ourselves. We’ve been able to save more money, work more efficiently.
For over a decade, our businesses were thriving, and things were going well. For us, ACA was the perfect solution.
Until it wasn’t.
In January, the premium for our middling, bare-bones health plan skyrocketed to $1,975 a month.
When I saw this number automatically deducted from our joint checking account, I was stunned. We have some money saved, since we were lucky enough to have purchased our first house in Maine right before COVID hit, and sold it at a small profit to move further out into the country. But paying almost $2,000 a month for health insurance that can best be described as mid-level isn’t sustainable.
And we are only two people. Families of three or four may be paying almost double that. How?
Although I’ve had the luck of good health for most of my life, I’ve gotten the flu twice this season, and with every cough and rasping intake of breath, I worry that I could end up in the emergency room, which would cost thousands of dollars I don’t have. And right now, over 50,000 Mainers are facing even more impossible dilemmas: pay the mortgage or pay the insurance bill? Buy groceries or go to the doctor? These are real choices, unimaginable choices, that no one should have to make.
I don’t understand how we got to this point, and I worry about where we go from here.