{"id":5605,"date":"2017-04-05T08:00:30","date_gmt":"2017-04-05T16:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=5605"},"modified":"2017-04-04T20:52:49","modified_gmt":"2017-04-05T04:52:49","slug":"thanks-obamacare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/thanks-obamacare\/","title":{"rendered":"Thanks, Obamacare"},"content":{"rendered":"
By: Stephanie Blair\r\nEditor-in-Chief<\/pre>\n
On March 24, fewer than 20 days after its initial release to the public, the bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and replace it with American Health Care Act was pulled from the House floor before being put to a vote.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe did not have quite the votes to replace [Obamacare],\u201d said Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, R-WI. \u201cWe are going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Affordable Care Act was passed in March 2010 and has provided insurance coverage for 20 million adults in its first six years, as estimated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.<\/p>\n
The proposed bill would have discontinued the individual coverage requirement, which would also provide the demise of the ACA\u2019s famous penalty for those who can afford coverage but do not have it. As stated on healthcare.gov, \u201cThe penalty is 2.5% of household income or $695 per adult … whichever is higher.\u201d Penalties are paid through federal tax returns.<\/p>\n
\"\"Students do not receive a special exemption from the aforementioned penalty. For students who are not listed on their parents\u2019 insurance plan, finding healthcare coverage is required. Because Western does not offer a student health plan to domestic students, any uninsured U.S. students should either attempt to be added to their parents\u2019 plan or fill out an application for insurance using the Health Insurance Marketplace.
\nRegardless of Oregon residency status, students should apply for insurance in the state they attend school in. The Oregon Health Plan has open enrollment, year-round.<\/p>\n
Special coverage is available for those who cannot afford insurance and meet certain criteria: Medicaid and the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program. These programs, \u201c… provide free or low-cost health coverage to millions of Americans, including some low-income people, families and children, pregnant women, the elderly, and people with disabilities,\u201d as stated on healthcare.gov.<\/p>\n
The Oregon Health Plan and Medicaid can both be applied for online at oregonhealthcare.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n
For more information about healthcare penalties, exemptions and more, visit healthcare.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n
For information about resources specific to Oregon, visit oregonhealthcare.gov<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Contact the author at journaleditor@wou.edu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By: Stephanie Blair Editor-in-Chief On March 24, fewer than 20 days after its initial release to the public, the bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, and replace it with American Health Care Act was pulled from the House floor before being put to a vote. \u201cWe did not have quite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":937,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/937"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}