How The Affordable Care Act Can Help You Land Your Dream Job
See how women’s lives have been transformed after buying independent health coverage. (Photo: Devon Jarvis)
At the White House this week, they’re celebrating the more than 16 million people who now have health care, surpassing their goals for the first five years of the Affordable Care Act. (Yes, those notorious glitches that dogged the system in its early days have been resolved.) We’re celebrating, too, because not only has the ACA made health care possible for those who previously couldn’t afford it, but also a surprising demographic has emerged as major beneficiaries. According to Bess Evans, associate director in the White House Office of Public Engagement, their inboxes have been flooded with letters, including those from women who’d been trapped in jobs they stayed in for the health benefits until the ACA set them free. From tech entrepreneurs to cupcake bakers, Evans tells of many women who have written to say that having coverage on their own—finally!—gives them the peace of mind to do what they’ve always wanted.
See how the ACA has helped young working women change their lives—and how it could change yours, too.
It untangles your health history from your resume.
“I feel liberated!” says Theresa Urban, of Arlington, VA, who last year left her federal contracting job to become an independent consultant when she was able to get health coverage through the ACA. This in spite of suffering from asthma and Multiple Sclerosis, an autoimmune disease—both “preconditions” that would have earned her a swift rejection from insurers in the past. (There are 65 million women like Urban with preexisting conditions.)
In addition, Urban is a seasoned Ironman triathlete (she named her consulting business 1406 Group after the 140.6 miles of an Ironman race), and often seeks treatment for injuries. “Health insurance is very important for me,” she says. Now I can talk to any doctor and be incredibly honest with what my health history is. Not being judged for a preexisting condition—that was life changing. Being able to buy your own health insurance gives you control over your own destiny,” Urban says.
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It’s gives you the security to strike out on your own.
“Access to quality, affordable health care has been a barrier for many women who want to start their own business,” the White House’s Evans explains. In part that’s because it’s especially expensive to have a woman’s body. In 2012, a 25-year-old woman could be expected to pay 81 percent more for health insurance than a man, even for a policy that did not include maternity coverage. And 92 percent of health insurance plans in the individual market were gender-rated—meaning 40-year-old women paid more than 40-year-old men for coverage, according to research from The National Women’s Law Center. (Fortunately the ACA is helping to even things out.) It’s no wonder, then, that women are historically more likely to be covered as dependents on a partner’s plan—a fact that had made us more vulnerable to losing insurance coverage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Whether it’s breaking up with your partner or breaking up with your boss, how do we maintain our health while building the professional lives we want on our terms? Cydney Kaplan worked for in a high-end assisted living facility in Los Angeles and knew she wanted “something different, something more.” The TV veteran loved working with seniors, and had the idea to launch a business for seniors who don’t need a full-time care giving, just occasional socialization and errand-running. “Knowing that I could find health care that was going to be affordable through the ACA helped me to say, Hey, I can do this on my own,” she says.
She launched Independent Living Concierge in 2012, and today both Kaplan and her business are thriving. “It’s nice to finally have this flexibility. I don’t have the corporate structure hanging over me,” she says. “I can do the activities I want, and set my own hours. It’s a lot of responsibility, but the stress level is so much less. I’m in charge, and I really like that.”
It helps you reach for your next step.
Young people (under 35) in particular are benefitting in a post-ACA world—many of whom who until recently had the anxiety of trying to manage without health insurance so they could have some flexibility in this rocky, start-up-leaning economy. They are now able to make different calculations about their livelihood after being dropped from their parents’ plans at 26.
That’s a time of life, we all know, where the freedom to work where we want is especially essential to how we build our lives. Sara Dewey, a first year Harvard Law School student credits the flexibility the ACA afforded her with allowing her not just to pursue work that mattered to her, but it “arguably helped me get into law school,” she writes. Dewey signed up through a Connecticut exchange during the year she worked—without benefits—at a think tank, at the university where her then-boyfriend was a grad student. She adds, to no small shakes, “It also enabled me to live in the same place as my [now-husband] after years of long distance. So it was important for both my professional and personal life.”
By the second quarter of 2014, 40 percent more of the under-35 demographic was insured than before the ACA was signed into law. That’s especially good news when you consider that the marketplace only works when healthy people sign up to get the care that maintains that good health, whether your workplace is your living room or a board room; whether you work in your yoga pants or a suit.
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It keeps money in your pocket.
The zeal to strike out on one’s own is at the roots of our American story. Yet there’s a flip side to that ideology—and arguably a darker one–that opposes the ACA, despite its measurable gains. And that’s the uniquely American notion of self-sufficiency. Which holds, by implication, that the $20,000 in hospital fees for an uncomplicated birth is something an entrepreneur should pay for out of her checking account. Ditto those mammograms, cervical exams and birth control. No wonder it has long been easier for men to become self-employed, when you consider how much less they need to invest in their own health care.
The latest polling data shows that most people—including most Republicans—disapprove of the challenge to the ACA currently before the Supreme Court. But The White House knows there are many miles to go before the public is entirely assured that support the ACA offers—not just for the poor, but for everyone—undergirds rather than detracts from good old fashioned American entrepreneurship.
“I believe in my heart that access to healthcare will enable creative, innovative, and hardworking Americans to become more flexible in their work day, which will improve quality of life and redefine how business is done,” Urban says. That’s a story we need to start telling. Not just a story about health, but about what women can do in our own lives and in the world when we can make our own choices with both the utmost security and independence.
By Lauren Sandler
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