Health insurance realities | Guest Column

By Lauren Cohen, San Juan Island

For the majority of Americans who get their insurance through employers, the consequences of the ironically named Affordable Care Act have gone mostly unnoticed since its inception. They are very fortunate. For the self-employed, like my family or others who have had to purchase health insurance on the open market, the ACA is an abject failure. This legislation accomplished one good outcome in allowing those with pre-existing conditions access to insurance. For the remainder, like me, the premise was a lie from the beginning, as this was our reality. We were not able to keep our affordable, decent insurance. We were not able to keep the doctors of our choice. Coverage we did not want or need was shoved on us. Our premiums did not go down and in fact skyrocketed to a high of 300% what they had been before Obamacare. Deductibles doubled and tripled, coverage became so basic that it amounted to catastrophic only. Federal legislators disregarded pleas for help from us and those like us who had to purchase our own private insurance and never made a single adjustment to make right the financial havoc they imposed on my family.

Premiums have gone up so high that the entire program had to be propped up with taxpayer subsidies. These handouts should have been a temporary fix while our legislators from both political parties worked on a real solution to affordable health insurance. Instead, the grandstanding fools, again, on both sides of the aisle in D.C., care more about bloviating their party line, pointing fingers and name-calling, but very little about the devastating effects of 2026 health insurance premiums.

Turning to our own backyard, San Juan County, has once again drawn the short straw in our state government's insurance game. Ambetter Health is our singular option, with only the highest price plans offered. Why the good people of our islands are not worthy of better, I do not understand. Our County Council claims they have no power to influence health insurance choices for us. Nor do our elected state officials or the insurance commissioner. San Juan County is left with garbage because our leaders don't lead on the hardest issues.

Why can't our county officials, along with our state legislators, together pressure Washington's insurance providers to write policies for us? Why don't our so-called leaders insist that insurance companies that are making a lot of money off the backs of hard-working Washingtonians, write policies in all counties? Clearly, it is too difficult a fight. Perhaps there are not enough of us who need to purchase individual insurance for them to take any concrete action other than to use our stories to further their own agendas. Individuals in San Juan County are the ones with no ability to influence this issue. We are at the mercy of hapless leaders at all levels and of both parties who play games with our health care, talk a lot and accomplish little. This letter is a plea for someone in power to take the lead and serve your constituents of these beautiful islands. We deserve better.