Families across the U.S. are learning that President Obama’s signature piece of legislation- the Affordable Care Act, is anything but affordable.
Rachel Benjamin, mother of six, was shocked when she was told that five of her six children needed to be placed on CHIP, Medicaid for kids.
"I don’t want to feel like I’m the lowest class citizen in this country. I mean, like, who is on Medicaid?" she told WOAI-TX.
The Benjamin family pays $1,788.00 for their current private health care plan, which covers the entire family, but no longer meets the requirements of the Obamacare law.
The Benjamins could buy separate policies without subsidies, but it would cost their family $16,000 at the very least.
Experts say that putting children on Medicaid has many drawbacks, including the small number of doctors who will accept it, a concern echoed by Benjamin: "Now I’m just going to hope and pray that they’re [the kids] not going to need to go to the doctor."
One expert told WOAI-TX: "I wouldn’t put anybody’s kids on Medicaid because it’s a one size fits all program that is a bureaucratic mess that really is a safety net – it’s not supposed to be the healthcare of first choice."
"I don’t even know what we’re going to do now," Benjamin worried.