MINNEAPOLIS — When President Biden signed an executive order Tuesday expanding coverage through the Affordable Care Act, Minnesotans who pushed for the change were in the room.
And they were relieved to see that change is possible even in the slow-moving machinery of the federal government.
Among other things, President Biden's order ends the "family glitch" that was built into the landmark legislation when it was enacted in 2010. It's a fix that should bring down the cost of health care for thousands of Minnesotans and millions of Americans.
"I’m absolutely thrilled it’s fixed. Truly overwhelmed it went away," Allie Krueger of Savage told KARE.
Krueger and her husband Bobby were at the White House as guests of U.S. Rep. Angie Craig who, along with Sen. Amy Klobuchar and former President Barack Obama, stood behind the president as he signed the order.
"After running into walls and everybody saying nothing could be changed, it's wild to me that I could help change something, that your members of Congress can bring your personal stories forward," Krueger remarked.
Krueger's journey into the glitch started when she was laid off from her job as an entertainment manager at a large venue during the pandemic, and then discovered she was pregnant with twins. She looked into the MNsure insurance marketplace and discovered that, based on income, she should be eligible for $600 per month in ACA discounts to help pay the premiums on a private plan.
Krueger then learned she wasn't eligible to use those discounts, or subsidies, because she had access to a group plan through her husband's employer-based health insurance. Adding herself, their toddler and the twins she was expecting to her husband's plan through work would be far more expensive.
"The options we were given to get out of the glitch were to one, get divorced, two lower our income and qualify for Medicaid, or three convince my husband's employer to be in violation of the ACA and not offer any amount of health care subsidies to my husband."
None of those options seemed right. The Kruegers ended up spending more than 25% of their monthly income on health care coverage for the whole family.
"We were very close to pondering divorce just so we could afford health care. You should never be in that situation, pregnant with twins worrying about affording health care."
In the meantime, she reached out to Rep. Craig and enlisted her help trying to fix the glitch. Craig told her a lot of people had mentioned the glitch in theory, but they hadn't had a lot of people in that predicament come forward to talk about it.
"Angie Craig's office did take on my story, and it really helped the people at the White House be able to see something they’d heard in theory really play out with an individual and how it affects their family."
How does the family glitch work?
You can only get ACA subsidies – or discounts – on health insurance if you buy it through an exchange like Minnesota's MNsure marketplace. However, those exchanges aren’t open to people who have access to “affordable coverage" through an employer.
That's due to a rule the IRS made in 2013 when the ACA was being implemented. It defined "affordable employer coverage" as premiums that cost less than 10% of your monthly income.
But that 10% figure is based on what it costs a single person to buy health coverage through an employer's plan. It didn't take into consideration that adding a spouse and/or children to your work health insurance plan drives up the monthly premium considerably.
So, people like Allie Krueger were stuck in the gap. They ended up paying far more than 10% of their family income for employer-based health coverage but weren't allowed to take advantage of discounts they otherwise would qualify for if they could buy insurance through the MNsure marketplace.
"I’ve been fighting to lower out-of-pocket health care costs for Minnesotans. I’m happy to see that hard work pay off, as President Biden follows through on our promise to fix the family glitch that has made health care unaffordable for more than 5 million families nationwide," Rep. Craig said Tuesday.
"I'm so thrilled that the Administration is taking this long-overdue action to lower costs for working families like the Kruegers."
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