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CBS Interviews Widowed Mother Getting Gashed by Obamacare After Insurer Leaves Marketplace

October 27, 2016

CBS This Morning featured a widowed mother of two on Thursday who recently received a letter from her insurance company saying it was leaving the Obamacare marketplace, causing her insurance to become "unaffordable."

"It's completely unaffordable," New Orleans attorney Jackie Maloney said.

New Orleans CBS affiliate WWL reports:

"I'm a widow. I have two kids. It makes it very difficult. It's unaffordable. It's completely unaffordable," said Maloney who owns a law office in Metairie. "It more than doubled, and we lost all the doctors that I had previously been using," she said about the first time she signed up for PPACA [Affordable Care Act].

Maloney said she received a letter from her insurance company, Coventry, stating it is leaving the Official ACA Marketplace. Now, Maloney said she will have a choice of only three insurance companies and has been told her out of pockets cost will be much higher.

"I end up having to come out of pocket $20,000 before I see a penny of coverage. We can't afford to use the insurance. We can't afford to use it," said Maloney.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell said the reason that healthcare costs are now skyrocketing is because health insurance companies initially offered rates that were too low because of the lack of data from a marketplace that did not previously exist.

She said that the focus needs to be on what consumers are currently paying.

In the 39 states served by the online Obamacare exchanges, premiums for midlevel plans will rise by an average of 25 percent.