New York’s small-business owners, seniors and doctors are among the big losers as President Obama’s prescription for health-insurance reform takes effect.
The National Federation of Independent Businesses, an organization that represents nearly 11,000 entrepreneurs across the state, says it has yet to find a single member whose health-care costs are going down under the ObamaCare program, whose plans took effect New Year’s Day.
Meanwhile, an “overwhelming majority” of businesses canvassed by the group has reported increases in their insurance premiums, said Mike Durant, the NFIB’s New York director.
Michael Kennedy, who runs two family-owned dog-grooming salons near Albany, said changes to his cut-rate insurance coverage mandated by ObamaCare had more than doubled the cost, from $132.99 to $325.92 a month per person.
And when he checked the cost of buying an ObamaCare policy instead, it was “basically the same price, or even more,” he said.
Kennedy, 46, said that he and his wife clear only about $60,000 a year from their Pink Dog Parlor and Resort business, and that paying the new, higher premiums will be “a huge challenge.”
“It’s like another 100 dogs we need to groom,” he said.
Capt. Fred Ardolino, who is the owner of the Atlantis charter yacht that cruises New York City’s waterways, said he was betrayed by Obama’s now infamous promise that “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”
Ardolino, 69, of Gerritsen Beach, Brooklyn, said his family physician was “randomly removed” from the network of managed-Medicare doctors approved by his insurance company, Oxford Health Plans.
More than 2,000 doctors are currently suing Oxford’s parent company, UnitedHealthcare, for allegedly kicking them off its Medicare Advantage network in response to ObamaCare’s regulations.
The Brooklyn federal-court case also says the plaintiffs’ elderly patients will have to scramble for new doctors — or dig deep to pay for “out-of-network” treatment.
Leslie Moran, of the New York Health Plan Association trade group, said other losers include people who had been buying state-subsidized insurance, but who now must pay higher premiums for ObamaCare.
Moran said New York has its share of winners “because there are more people getting coverage than had it before.”
One happy ObamaCare enrollee is Allena Ruszkiewicz, 36, of Jackson Heights, Queens, who had been uninsured since July after quitting her job as a phlebotomist because she suffers from narcolepsy and other ailments.
Without benefits, she couldn’t afford the $5,000-a-month cost of the prescription drug Xylem to prevent daytime sleeping attacks.
Instead, Ruszkiewicz said, she relied on a home remedy of “Red Bull and really strong coffee, which really doesn’t work so well.”
Since signing up for a top-tier ObamaCare “platinum” plan, she’s paid the $462.69 monthly premium, and now feels like “a huge winner.”