Bloomsburg Students Hit Hard With Obamacare
The new health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, is a roaring issue around the world, and is currently impacting many students from Bloomsburg University.
The new health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act, is a roaring issue around the world, and is currently impacting many students from Bloomsburg University.
Known to its critics as “Obamacare,” and having been released two years ago, many provisions have already been taking huge tolls on people everywhere. The sweeping law does not seem fair to many who are already insured, considering the substantially higher cost that they are now required to pay.
Because Obamacare’s purpose is to insure all Americans, universally, the working 
Americans who are already contently insured with their own health care, must alter their plans just so they can support the other Americans who aren’t insured.
One student from Bloomsburg University, Danielle Kelley, complains of the negative effects that Obamacare has recently caused her, “I’ve worked so hard these past few years at my full-time job and never had any problems with paying for my own health insurance. But now that Obama is striving for this universal health care plan to insure all of America, I can no longer afford my own, with how much more expensive it is.”
Along with Danielle, many other students are struggling to keep up with their higher-waged health insurances.
An anonymous source at Bloomsburg University, expresses some of her feelings towards the new plan. “I can’t even afford my birth control now, because of the new health care act. Before, with my old health insurance, it completely covered my birth control prescription every month. But now, I had no choice but to switch health insurance plans because my old one was becoming so expensive,” Tierney protests. “On my new plan, though, my prescription is ridiculously expensive every month.”
With the upcoming election, all of this could potentially change. If Mitt Romney is elected in this years’ election on Nov. 9th, there is hope for all the hard working Americans. In this case, there will be many unhappy Bloomsburg students, who are paying much more for their health insurance right now than they’ve ever had to pay in the past. This is just one of the many health care issues that is being brought up and discussed among students around Bloomsburg’s campus.
Another major aspect of the act that is creating great discussion among Bloomsburg students is one facing the tax that has been placed on tanning salons. The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that was made three months ago upholding the health care reform law, has answered the burning question about what will happen to Obama’s “tanning-tax.” According to an article posted on CNNMoney, it looks like it’s here to stay, which is creating mixed opinions.
For almost two years now, indoor tanners have paid an extra 10 percent tax on their bronzing bill.
A student from Bloomsburg University, who works at a tanning salon called South Beach Tanning, tells us her thoughts on the tax. “In regards to our clients coming in to tan, there really hasn’t been any significant drop in number. I mean it’s just like paying a tax on cigarettes, in a way. Smokers who are addicted to smoking aren’t going to stop buying packs of cigarettes just because of the tax on them. They’re going to buy what they’re craving. If people want to be tan, they’re going to come in to our tanning salon to tan, no matter what. The tax to tan doesn’t seem to be stopping anyone from getting their bronze on,” Brianna chuckles.
Brianna seems to have given a pretty correct judgment according to a study conducted by Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. According to this study, a full 78 percent of salon owners polled reported that their clients did not seem to care about the tax, indicating that the demand for indoor tanning services is somewhat insensitive to a 10 percent tax level.
On the other side of the issue on Obama’s tanning tax, the intention behind it was to benefit Americans. The two main goals of this small measure buried in the Affordable Care Act were to make a dent in the reform bill’s $940 billion price tag, and to discourage indoor tanning for health reasons. According to the International Agency for Research on Cancer, one of the deadliest forms of skin cancer, melanoma, increases by 75 percent when people begin tanning before the age of 35.
Until the upcoming election, the issues rising from Obamacare will still be in debate. In the remaining time before the polls open, Bloomsburg students will continue to ramble about their personal problems dealing with Obama’s health care reform act.
