Readers React: Obamacare works, even for Trump voters

To the editor: Virginia resident Peggy Hayes, a supporter of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, complains that the Obama administration has “un-babysat” the country and blames it for the loss of her health insurance several years ago. (“Virginia voter, struggling to make ends meet, finds a voice with take-charge Donald Trump,” April 21)

Yet it took me all of one minute on the Virginia health insurance exchange website to determine that a resident of Spotsylvania County that is Hayes’ age and with her income could obtain a policy for $258 a month. That’s $11 a month less than what Hayes had been paying for her catastrophic policy, and while it has a large deductible, it provides almost certainly better coverage than she had in the past.

By not doing her homework and foregoing insurance, she is not only throwing money away on a tax penalty, she is also almost certainly setting herself up for financial catastrophe down the line.

Some would argue that The Times’ reporter would be breaching his journalistic objectivity by informing Hayes of these facts. But if that’s the case, these spotlights on low-information voters like Hayes reduce their electoral decisions to something like a freak show that supposedly more enlightened urbanites in Los Angeles can chuckle at.

I’ve seen many such stories over the past six years about people like Hayes who refuse to even contemplate getting health insurance, and their decision goes even gently unquestioned by reporters. I scratch my head about this noblesse oblige toward objectivity. Certainly you want to inform readers, but maybe once in a while you should inform people like Hayes.

Ron Shinkman, Sherman Oaks

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