Impending blindness makes man who rejected Obamacare demand it [View all]

A 49-year-old man in South Carolina who declined to enroll in the Affordable Care Act because he has always eschewed insurance in favor of paying his medical bills himself now needs an expensive eye surgery that he can't afford. His doctor says he'll go blind without it.

Despite his deliberate decision to refuse Obamacare when he had the opportunity -- the mandate -- Luis Lang tells The Charlotte Observer that he assumed help would be available to him when he needed it. His diminishing eyesight has left him unable to work. His inability to work makes him ineligible for a federal subsidy to purchase private insurance. And his state's opposition to the Affordable Care Act means Medicaid was not expanded, so that's not an option either.

Guess who he and his wife blame for his predicament. President Barack Obama, of course, and the Democrats who passed a bill that doesn't allow conscientious objectors to just jump into the Affordable Act when their medical bills overwhelm them. The bill Obama and the Democrats came up with is too complex, too confusing, the Langs say, and it's causing the 49-year-old to suffer.

Conceptually, the Affordable Care Act is quite simple. Everybody buys health insurance or pays a penalty for his or her refusal to do so. People who buy in get treated when they get sick. People who don't buy in and who live in states like Louisiana that are too Obamaphobic to help its folks, well, they get to put their dedication to self reliance to the test. Back when this was a Republican issue -- i.e, back when then Gov. Mitt Romney was pushing for its implementation in Massachusetts -- the emphasis was that there is no such thing as a free lunch. The idea of mandated health insurance was based on the conservative notion that people who have the resources and should have had the foresight to buy medical insurance shouldn't expect treatment after they get sick.

&quot My husband) should be at the front of the line, because he doesn't work and because he has medical issues," Mary Lang said. "We call it the Not Fair Health Care Act."

Read more: http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2015/05/blindness_obamacare.html

[font color=green]Please read the rest of the article and stay classy with the comments.[/font]