This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

A lot of appropriate attention has been paid to Medicaid expansion and effects of changes through the supposedly defunct recent legislation of the American Health Care Act (AHCA). I would like to also bring the individual health care market into focus and the great help the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been to our self-employed family of two.

In 2006 my husband decided he wanted to take a leap of faith and try his hand at starting his own business. As I was already self-employed, this moved us from the group insurance market to the individual market. Since we were both active and healthy we didn't think there would be a problem. No one could have possibly prepared us for the nightmare we encountered in the individual marketplace.

At first, I was denied health care coverage while my husband was approved, without any reasons given or response permitted. We were finally accepted on our third insurance application. What followed in the next five years were astronomical yearly premium and/or deductible increases. The first year, we were lucky. We only experienced a 17 percent increase in premiums. But, for the next four years, we had an average 29 percent increase in premiums or deductible.

In 2010 I read an article in the Salt Lake Tribune quoting the head of the State of Utah Insurance Department that he knew of no problems in the individual insurance market rates. Amazed, I called the department to give them our statistics and was told that only way they could take any information was to file a complaint. I therefore filed a complaint on July 14, 2010. On May 18, 2011, I received a response that there was no law broken or problem with the rate increases.

We had Health Savings Account (HSA) eligible, high-deductible insurance. The other thing most people don't understand, is you must fund both the health insurance premium and the HSA to pay for things like lab tests and meds, until you meet your high deductible. The HSA gets used. By the end of 2012, we were paying a whopping $15,400 per year, half of our take home income, for terrible insurance. We were going to have to be uninsured.

Enter the life-saver of the Affordable Care Act in 2014. We went with the Bronze, HSA eligible, high deductible plan. Still funding an HSA, we experienced actual cost per year decreases for the first two years, then a 3 percent increase in 2016 and a 28 percent increase for this year, 2017. Even with this last increase, we're still paying $4,000 a year less in overall costs than with non-ACA insurance at the end of 2012.

We went with our spreadsheet of 10-year cost increases and comparisons in hand to Rep. Chris Stewart's town hall last Friday. I gave the spreadsheet and a copy of the State Insurance Department complaint response to a staffer there. I thought the republican proposed AHCA was breathtakingly calloused and cruel. I couldn't believe my ears when Stewart said that the estimated 24 million people who would lose their health care coverage represented "those who choose" not to have health insurance. He basically said the ACHA was the best most magnificent deal akin to the ACA that we were lucky to get and mocked the crowd when they cheered about wanting to retain the ACA. The Republican representatives have stabbed, beaten and strangled every aspect of the ACA from the insurance coops to the risk corridor defunding. Then they take no responsibility and say it's in a "death spiral."

There are many good things in the ACA as well as issues still to be solved. What I want, and what people were requesting at the town hall was that the Republicans reach across the aisle to figure out what works and what doesn't in the ACA. In a bipartisan way stabilize the markets by funding the risk corridors while we figure this out. And there must be some form of income based tax credits to health care, not just age. Stewart was 100 percent behind building a wall but couldn't care less about 24 million people losing their health insurance. Do you wonder why people were booing? Please, don't you feel we can muster the political will for affordable sustainable health care that is the equivalent to the will of building a wall?

J.B. (Mary) Brett is a property manager and a certified massage therapist who has worked with chronic and acute pain and injury clients for 23 years.