NJ Obamacare Cancels Insurance Plans of 1,800 Children

Roughly 1,800 New Jersey children had their insurance plans cancelled last week due to Obamacare.

With the flurry of cancellation notices hitting mailboxes across the Garden State, one parent, Bob Miotla, told the NJ.com news of his son’s cancellation made him “extremely angry.”

“Without having that safety net, if an illness arises, we will probably take him to the ER,” said Miotla, who is on Medicare and disabled.

Obamacare’s new mandated requirements killed New Jersey’s low-cost children’s insurance coverage plan, FamilyCare Advantage. The plan, offered by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, was designed for children whose parents make too much money to qualify for Medicaid and offered medical, dental, and vision coverage for just $144 a month. The program, which was the first of its kind in the nation, was implemented six years ago and considered a model for others states seeking economical ways to provide quality coverage for kids from working class families.

Yet, since FamilyCare Advantage lacked things like mental health services, Obamacare deemed the children’s 1,800 plans illegal and the program shuttered last week. 

“This is enormously disappointing, said NJ state Sen. Joseph Vitale (D) who co-sponsored the bill that created the program. “It was $5 for doctor visits, $1 for pharmacy and no deductible or cost sharing.”

The Obamacare plan offered by the same insurance provider has a $1,500 minimum deductible. Vitale told NJ.com that most families whose children were covered will be ineligible for taxpayer-funded federal Obamacare subsidies because “they earned too much money.”

The 1,800 New Jersey children join the five million other Americans who also had their plans canceled by Obamacare. A new study by the RAND Corporation reportedly finds that nearly one million people whose plans were canceled by Obamacare still remain uninsured, a figure Democrats previously claimed was less than 10,000.

Obamacare remains highly unpopular. The latest Associated Press poll finds that an all-time low 26% of Americans support Obamacare.