Of you who have received health care through the Affordable Care act exchanges. We want to know what has and has not worked for you. If you are a marketplace enrollee who lives on the eastern or central time zones, 2027488000. If you are a aca marketplace enrollee and you live in the mountain or pacific time zones, 2027488001. You can also chime in on facebook or twitter. Good wednesday morning to you. Some information about the pool of callers we are hoping to speak with in the first hour of washington journal today, there are more than about 10 million of you out in the United States. This chart breaks up the number of aca enrollees by the number of Congressional Districts in the United States. The darker districts on the map mean there are more aca enrollees in the area. There are about 5. 9 million who live in democratic districts across the country. 5. 2 million who live in democratic districts around the country. 5. 9 who live in republican districts around the country. Floridas district 47. Marketplace enrollees for democratic district range from hawaii to about 87,000 in florida. The 10 Congressional Districts with the highest number of enrollees are all in florida. Seven republican districts and 11 democratic districts. All of this information coming from the Kaiser Family breakdown of aca enrollees across the country. We want to talk with you this morning if you are an aca enrollee. We want to have this conversation with you, the day after a Bipartisan Health bill has started to gain steam on capitol hill. Here is an article about that endeavor. Leaders on the Senate HealthCommittee Said on tuesday that they struck a deal for a twoyear extension on subsidies for Insurance Companies to cover low income clients, subsidies that President Trump canceled last week. Towould allow states experiment with alternative standards but it would not do away with the standards to cover people with preexisting conditions. It would not eliminate socalled essential health that if its t insurance plans much must cover. President trump will be a key player if the agreement moves forward. Yesterday, earlier in the day at a press event in the rose garden, President Trump spoke favorably about the senators ef forts. Last night at the conservative Heritage Foundation where he give a speech, he said this. Pres. Trump democrats are finally responding to my call for them to take responsibility for the obamacare disaster and work with republicans to provide muchneeded relief to the american people. While i applaud the bipartisan done, i continue to ask senate to provide solutions to obamacare rather than providing bailouts to Insurance Companies. Host we will have a Health Care Roundtable coming up during our 8 00 hour. We will show you some of the statements on twitter and coming out of capitol hill. We want to hear from you if you are an aca enrollee this morning. If you live in the eastern or central time zone, 2027488000. If you are one of those aca enrollees and live in the mountain or pacific time zones, 2027488001. The phone lines are open. We will start with paul in new haven, connecticut. Caller good morning. Good morning. Host go ahead. Caller i am enrolled in the aca, and what i have found is that doctors and nurses are generally discriminatory towards in rowleys enrollees. The hospital will double bill win malpractice occurs to fix the malpractice that was committed. Than ends up costing more it did to begin with, but no one is monitoring billing process. Host what kind of health care did you have before the aca . Caller private. Host did you find that that worked better or that this current plan works better for your needs . Better. Private did work it seemed like they were happier to take on a patient who had private care. Host so the access was better for you . About theam not sure , iess, but when i was billed felt like the doctors actually listened and heard my complaints. They gave me care that i felt i needed. Host did you pay more now or back then . Caller i do not pay more now. Subsidies . About the that was paul in new haven, connecticut. Jay is next. Caller i am enrolled through the exchange, and it has been very problematic, very expensive for me. I also had to make a move within my own state and needed to reenroll. I have to change my doctors two times because of that, so it has been a very frustrating experience. Host why did you have to reenroll if you were in the same state . Caller the plan i had was not covered in the other part of the state. I lost the progress i have made on my deductible as a result. It was very upsetting. I pay 900 a month i think. I have a deductible for the family of about 11,900. I have had to go to new doctors, of course. I had to go through all that. Visiting new doctors, getting them online. When i changed plans, i had to do that again, because the doctors that were in the plans offered were not covered by the new plan. So, i have had to change doctors two times, and both times it was a very expensive plan. It has not worked out well for me at all. Host what did you have before the Affordable Care act . Caller i had insurance from my company. When i left the company to start my own, i would have preferred to have the option to commercially seek out a commercial plan, but i went through the aca plan. I went through the exchange, and it has been quite an eyeopener. My opinion on what they need to do is let the market dictate, and let people by their insurance the weighted by Everything Else. Their insurance just like they buy Everything Else. I hope they continue to work on trying to bring Free Market Solutions to this. We should be able to buy insurance just like we by Everything Else. Host again, we are talking with aca enrollees only. If you live in the eastern or central time zones, 2027488000. Mountain or pacific time zones, 2027488001. We will be talking about health care for a great deal of the show today. We will have a roundtable discussion on health care at 8 00 focused on the bipartisan proposal to fix some of the subsidies that President Trump decided last week he would end payments for. This bipartisan proposal put together by senators Lamar Alexander and patty murray, the chairman and Ranking Member on the house, labor, and Pensions Committee has been working on this for several months now. Here is alexander yesterday talking about the proposal. Later this week, senator murray and i along with other senators will introduce a Bipartisan Legislation to create more choices for Health Insurance policy in the individual markets and extend subsidies for 2018 and 2019. These subsidies cover copays and deductibles for millions of low income americans who buy Health Insurance on the Affordable Care act exchanges. Our goal is to stabilize and then lower the cost of premiums and to enable all americans to have access to Health Insurance. I legislation will be based on for hearings and other meetings based on four hearings and other meetings that the committee will be holding over the month. Meetings were and bipartisan and lengthy. They were remarkable in this sense. They engaged nearly 60 senators from both lyrical parties both Political Parties in an extensive discussions. Host more about those subsidies you will be hearing even more about and has been hearing so much about, this is a New York Times article from yesterday on the proposals. The costsharing subsidies have been in doubt since the federal government ruled that the payments were unconstitutional because Congress Never appropriated money for them. So, President Trump the cleared last week that he would stop the payments. Many low income people would receive more Financial Assistance in the form of tax credits to pay the higher premiums, but many medium income more costs. Receive adding alexander also that it would provide more flexibility to the Affordable Care act with states expressing h possible insurance plans expert mounting with alternative, flexible insurance plans. We want to hear from aca enrollees only in this first hour of the washington journal. Diana from pennsylvania. Go ahead. Caller hello. We love it. We have been enrolled in the Program Since it was available in pennsylvania. We are selfemployed. Almost 1400 a month. My husband is older than i am. So, the fees for our family would always increase. The first year, we paid approximately 600 a month with aca. Every year, it has gone down a little bit. When pennsylvania expanded the medicare expansion due to our family size and income, we actually fell into that, so we were able to save some more. We have never had to change our doctor. The only change we have had to was from request to corp, becauselab i believe the contract had changed. Host what did you do through the Affordable Care act . Caller we purchased our own. We had blue cross and blue but it was always it was always almost 1400 a month which is even more than our mortgage. Fell intoconomy thousand eight in 2008, we had to make a lot of choices about our mortgage and health care. The aca has saved us. Host have you had any trouble with doctors seeing you . Or access to doctors . Caller never. This is the key that some of the people complain about. Unfortunately, i do not think they are getting the whole picture. If you read through the plants prior through the plans to purchasing them, you can read through them and figure out if your doctor is in that plan. If they are not, then you do not have to purchase that one, and you can purchase a different one. Two of our kids are diagnosed with autism, and one of them is diagnosed with diabetes. Them havingus about to change anything, because you get comfortable with the doctors you have for your kids. To seeread the plans what was offered, and we chose doctorsat our kids were under. There were Different Levels out of the service for our doctors, and we were always able to find our doctors. We live not far from philadelphia. I do not know if it is because we are just in that area that there are so many areas so many doctors participating in the plan, but we have never had trouble. Whenever i tried to explain how wonderful it is, i get immediately attacked by people saying that i am lying and that any to prove it. Silver, andys used we have never had trouble. It has been great. Tot next, we are going maine where chris is waiting period good morning. Is waiting. Good morning. Caller good morning. I was previously on my wifes plan. When i signed up for the aca, there were about 40 or 50 different choices at Different Levels with different costs and benefits. There was an enormous array of choices available. I would challenge anybody from the right wing to say that they had 40 or 50 different choices of insurance plans. Of course they cant, but that doesnt matter they just want to destroy the thing. I signed up for the aca, and it has been about 200 less a month. They provide better services. The reality is that it cannot and will not last, because one thing that people are not talking about, because it is terrifying to do so, is how much it costs for all this stuff. Pay for average ceo Certain HealthInsurance Companies across the company went up to about 16 million or 70 million a year, there are some of the different organizations that have their hands in the cookie jar. We are paying 40 of every health care dollar we pay to people other than the doctors. Even the doctors have their pay going up and up. Hospital our local built a new er. They went all out with two beautiful italian discussion tables. Host so what is the answer . Caller i grew up in england, belgium, and i was in the military, and so i always had Government Run Health Care whether it was on military bases or living in foreign countries. We oil had very Good Health Care. In england, we always had very Good Health Care. In england, there was a doctor who was paid a salary and their job was to get good results. Unless you have a single pair Health Care System that is not based on wanting to make as much money as you can either they , it will notstem be repaired in our lifetime, because our entire country is so dependent on this forprofit model of health care. The aca has been good, but it cannot last. It will fall apart, and i hope republicans passed a bill that destroys it so that they can own it. It does not matter if the democrats or republicans own it, because it is not going to last forever. We are having this conversation a day after a Bipartisan Health bill has started to get some steam on capitol hill. Here is some Immediate Reaction from some of those in the senate after Lamar Alexander and patty plany introduced their focusing on some key Affordable Care act subsidies. Chuck schumer tweeting yesterday , i salute the two senators for working on a Bipartisan Health care solution. It received broad support from Senate Democrats today. Host we are going to continue to talk with aca enrollees only in this first hour of the washington journal. Shelley is waiting on the line. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host go ahead. ,aller i work in health care and i have worked for notforprofit organizations most of my life. Selfemployed, so i have carried the insurance for the last 15 years. He has a very Small Business. Unemployed, ore i was to be unemployed, our insurance would be about 1200 a month. So, i had to keep a job, so that i can keep insurance. We make athat good living. We have a Health Savings account that we use, and we understand how much things cost. We put money into our health we are account, and willing to pay whatever we need to pay for Health Insurance. But really, only if we are going to use it. We do not have to use it very often, because we do the prevention thing. And othermammogram yearly exams. So, across the board, i think we are to look at how much we investing in health care, and how much people are utilizing it. If you know you are going to pay money. If you know you are going to pay a deductible, you are going to be more cognizant about when you go to that er or dr. Doctor. Ast like if you went to Grocery Store and paid money at a very expensive Grocery Store or a not so expensive Grocery Store. Your expectation is that you are going to pay money, and that you need to put money away for this just like Everything Else in life. So that is my thought. Host do you think you could get by with a slimmed down version of your plan . There has been a push for more plans. They are having that discussion about whether all of the plants should have these essential Health Advocates in them. Essential Health Benefits in them. Caller because of my knowledge in health care, i could do a slimmed down version, but most people cannot. Most people cannot, because they do not understand their benefits. It is 20 pages of what is covered and not covered. Host we appreciate the call from missouri this morning. Patricia on the line. Caller good morning. , before i event get into our experience, is that the tax credits for lowincome families you only get a tax , ifit if you make income you do not make enough income to afford Health Insurance, you will not get a tax credit. I find that kind of ridiculous for low income families. , my husband was part of the downturn in 2006, so we have been self insuring since then. Because he has had some preexisting conditions, we have had to pay an awful lot of money. It is the most expensive thing we have to pay every year, more s our food,do fee our Living Expenses combined. When we went on to the aca, and itve him insurance aca, gave him insurance to begin with. We received health care that gave him what he needed, and we bought a silver plan. We do pay a fair bit of money for that plan between the two of us. Without subsidy for him it is about 1200, but with the subsidy it is about 868 a month. I have had a different plan, because i do not have any preexisting conditions. I am pretty lucky. Month,ying about 300 a and it would typically be about 600 or 700. That is the savings we have gotten. Aca, we had about a thousand dollar 11,000 deductible. As of yesterday, he has faced his third necessary surgery. He needed a back and a neck fusion which you was able to get, because he was rear ended by a car 30 years ago. It took a long time for the damage to show up. Our with that, we have sold condo, and we are