Health care law increases costs

Our president told us that “If you like the health insurance you have, you can keep it.” On Sept. 30, I was among the 9,200 Iowa senior citizens who received a letter from Humana informing us that the Medicare Advantage plan that has provided our health care insurance for several years would no longer be available. The only alternative Medicare Advantage plan offered by Humana, one similar to the one they dropped, will cost 86 percent more and raise our out-of-pocket maximum by 67 percent.

When federal laws (Obamacare) mandate that every disease known to man and likely a few not yet discovered be covered by every health insurance policy and every available medical procedure known to science be paid for, and any and all medical tests be covered and then require companies insure all regardless of health history or even impending death, we should not be surprised by inordinate huge insurance cost increases we must endure.

And then the new law penalizes the younger uninsured for failing to purchase overpriced policies while subsidizing most of their policies, adding a little more burden to taxpayers.

So, if the Affordable Care Act survives and health care becomes less affordable, we endure higher premiums and additional bureaucratic costs adding to our taxes. We are becoming painfully aware that our health care and our health care insurance is being directed and controlled by the federal government.

Dick Roggensack

Waukon