Debbie Hodges explains her decision to opt out of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and pay the penalty even though she has a rare chronic illness, is prescribed several expensive medications, and has ongoing issues related to her health situation.
Listen here:
Recently featured in a front page story at the Virginian-Pilot, she, along with others discuss the continuing burden of health care insurance.
Hodges is just a few years short of being eligible for Medicare and has amassed debt to pay for health insurance under the ACA.
She is prescribed 11 different medications to deal with the effects of her chronic illness, but has to order from Canada, or other countries outside the US, to be able to afford them.
Hodges is not someone who takes her situation lightly since being diagnosed in 1997. She planned well for her future knowing her medical costs would continue for the rest of her life.
However, what she didn’t plan for was the rising cost of care, along with the rising cost of insurance premiums and prescription drugs.
In order to pay these expenses she’s financially unable to live her life the way she thought she would and, like many others, has cut out many of the things she would like to do because of lack of funds.
As you listen to her story you’ll hear that she not only wishes to find solutions for her own situation, but is standing up as an advocate for others.
ImaginePublicity 
Debbie, thank you for your comment. We are definitely fighting a worse crisis with our healthcare system. Ms. Hodges has since qualified for disability and Medicare which is helping her situation, after she was forced into bankruptcy and had to sell her home. This isn’t the way any of us have planned to spend our retirement savings!
I know this was recorded when ACA first began, however, thought you’d like to know…it’s getting worse, not better for us that are hard-working, middle-class citizens. We can no longer afford traditional insurance. My personal high-deductible HSA PPO went from $180/mo to $820/mo (with a higher deductible and Max Out of Pocket). Wait…there’s more! Pres. Obama said we can keep our insurance if we wanted to, right? My insurance company (Aetna), left the individual market in CA. I didn’t have a choice. I also have MANY clients in the same boat. Several families paying $4500/month (double their mortgage) with 2 and 3 kids in college. How can anyone afford this craziness?
On top of that, our wonderful state of CA banned one of the other options we had, ‘short-term’ health plans. Which leaves us with one option, faith-based health ‘share plans’ (which is not even health insurance). For the first time in my 59 year life, I’m going commando, without traditional health insurance. It breaks my heart but they are leaving us no option.
Oh and by the way…I happened to be a health insurance agent