I did everything right. Health care still doesn’t add up

On Jan. 1, our health insurance premiums jumped by hundreds of dollars a month. The Blue Cross Blue Shield plan we purchased through the ACA, which cost us $570 a month last year, is now $907 a month in January. That’s nearly $11,000 a year just in premiums, before deductibles, prescriptions, or a single doctor’s visit.

I’m a small-business owner, so I buy health insurance for my family through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace. My husband works full-time, and we rent our home in Cedar Rapids. We both have full-time jobs, and we’ve done everything we were told to do to get ahead.

We’ve tried every option to pay for health care. Through my husband’s employer, a family plan costs $1,200 a month with a $10,000 deductible, which is completely unsustainable with the high costs in the current economy.

That kind of increase isn’t something we can simply budget around. Health care costs are already the biggest financial strain on our family. Because of previous medical conditions, we’ve acquired substantial medical debt. We currently pay $488 a month in medical bills and expect it to take at least three more years to pay it off. Saving feels impossible.

This isn’t bad luck or a budgeting failure. Our skyrocketing premiums are the direct result of a political decision. Donald Trump and Republicans like Rep. Ashley Hinson refuse to extend enhanced health care tax credits that more than 21 million Americans rely on to afford coverage. Without those tax credits, families like mine are seeing premiums double, or worse, overnight. These increases could cost more than 25,000 Iowans in Hinson’s district (and every other Iowa district) their health insurance.

Proposed solutions and health care plans offered by currently Republican leadership do not address the issue of monthly premiums going up. Offering someone $1,500 in a Health Savings Account for a high deductible health care plan does not help the rising cost of monthly premiums, nor does it make a dent in the high deductible health care plan.

Experts warned this would happen. Poll after poll shows Americans overwhelmingly support keeping these tax credits. Without them, millions will lose coverage, as many as one in four ACA marketplace enrollees.

We have realized we cannot cut any other costs to afford health insurance. I am hopeful that my kid qualify for Hawki. I am going to either go without insurance or join my husband's employer plan that has a $10,000 deductible, assuring more medical debt on top of the medical debt we are currently paying off. I’m asking Rep. Hinson to reconsider whose side she’s on. Families like mine need stability, affordability, and a health care system that works, not one that pushes us deeper into debt just to stay healthy.

Stacy Grooms, a small-business owner and ACA health care recipient who lives in Cedar Rapids.