If you’ve ever wondered what really would have happened to “Julia,” the fictitious woman created by President Obama’s campaign in 2012, today the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) published an update to her story.
The sequel follows Julia’s adventures in getting insurance under the President’s current health care policies, a fresh take on a character the campaign invented to demonstrate how the President’s policies “help” women ages 3 through 67.
As Jonah Goldberg noted in October, Julia grew up to become a web designer, though we don’t know if she was able to keep her hours full-time once her employer learned about the high costs of covering everything mandated under Obamacare.
Obama’s “Life of Julia” slideshow claimed that by 27, Julia would be employed full-time and able to “focus on her work rather than worry about her health” thanks to Obamacare, but IWF doesn’t think that sounds like real life.
“The reality is that this economy hasn’t provided us with the opportunities we want, and ObamaCare is making it worse. The Real Life of Julia tells the other side of the story – the real-world implications – that the White House leaves out,” said Hadley Heath, IWF’s senior health policy analyst.
IWF is guessing that at 26, Julia is now self-employed, which means she bought her own insurance policy. Thanks to Obamacare, she — like a lot of other people — received a cancellation notice for the policy she had that she liked. If she tries to keep it, her premium will rise sky-high.
Now, Julia is stuck looking for individual insurance on the Obamacare marketplace. (Literally stuck: It takes her hours just to set up an account on HealthCare.gov.)
IWF’s illustrated adventure shows the steps Julia takes just to try to find a reasonable plan now that there is less competition, only to discover she can’t keep the doctor she likes because he’s not included in her new coverage options.
What happens next? Follow along with IWF’s story here, but we warn you: It might hit a little close to home.
With all the time Julia is spending figuring out health care—and on a deadline, too—we hope this entrepreneur’s work isn’t suffering. Unfortunately, Julia’s budget struggle just might be the subject of the next sequel.