Like millions of other Americans, Charlene Hopkins, a 52-year-old working mother from Washington, will lose her health care plan because of Obamacare.
In her quest to find affordable insurance, Hopkins turned to Washington Healthplanfinder, the state’s Obamacare exchange. But once there, she discovered something alarming: she wasn’t able to choose a plan; her only option was Medicaid.
“How has it come to this?” she told her daughter. “How have I fallen this far?”
Hopkins’ daughter, Nicole L. Hopkins, shared the story in The Wall Street Journal, lamenting what had happened to her mother.
Even though the state is offering her the Medicaid option, Charlene isn’t happy about it.
“I just don’t expect anything positive out of getting free health care,” she said. “I don’t see why other people should have to pay for my care, whether it be through taxes or otherwise.”
Hopkins’ daughter wrote that her mother has provided for herself and has refused to take handouts, doing her best to make ends meet as a substitute teacher.
“I’m not on the couch, watching TV,” Charlene said. “I’m out trying to find more work every day.”
Nicole explained the predicament her mother now faces:
Of course, Medicaid is not a new option for my mother; she knew that she was poor enough to qualify for cost-free health care. It was a deliberate choice on her part to pay that monthly $276 out of her own pocket. Clearly she had judged that she received a personal benefit from not being on Medicaid.
Before Obamacare, Medicaid was one option. Not the option. Before this, she had never been, in effect, ordered to take a handout. Now she has been forced to join the government-reliant poor, though she would prefer to contribute her two mites. The authorities behind “affordable care” had erased her right to calculate what she was willing to spend to preserve her dignity—to determine what she thinks is affordable.
Charlene concluded, “The way I was raised, taking government handouts is shameful.”
