Q and A with Stephanie Grilo of Health Action NM and Mark Horst: Local Artist of Albuquerque, NM

                              

 

S- If you could please state your name and where you live?

M- I’m Mark Horst and I live in Albuquerque. I’ve lived here for four years. I lived in Minnesota most of my life which explains why I’m in New Mexico Now.

S- When did you start making art?

M- My move to New Mexico coincided with becoming a full time artist. We moved down here really because it’s a good place to do art. And close to a lot of artists. In Minnesota if you tell someone you’re an artists they say, “And what do you do?” But it’s sort of recognized profession here, and we love New Mexico.

S- And, is your Art your sole source of income?

M- So we do have some savings, so that can help pay for our basic living expenses. So, if I want to buy beer, I have to sell paintings. So it is an important source of income.

S- What type of health insurance, if any, did you have prior to finding coverage under the NM Health Exchange?

M- Because we have savings we didn’t want to put our savings at risk by not having health insurance. So, we had a catastrophic plan that we were paying $250 a month for and I think for the two of us it was 14,000 deductible, so it didn’t cover very much. So we set aside 10,000 as a kind medical emergency fund, so we were kind of self insuring a little bit, and the catastrophic plan would kick in if we had like some horrendous health event.

S- Where did you first hear about the new health care options provided by the Affordable Care Act?

M- I had been hearing about the Affordable Care Act for years since it passed in Obama’s first administration. So, I’ve been looking forward to how it would go and have kept track of how it was developing and when it was going to be available. And I was looking forward to October 1st when it came online. I’ve been aware of it for about 4 years.

S- Were you worried about affordability before you applied?

M- I was really curious about how much it was going to cost. I had a suspicion that we were going to save some money. I think the Keiser Family Foundation published an estimate of how much insurance would cost in different states, so I had seen that back in August and I thought we would probably get some good news.

S- How was the experience of navigating the online website?

M- So when October 1st rolled around I like millions of people, went on the site and actually had a really hard time because it just wouldn’t work at all. Once I realized they were having troubles, and people were jamming the site, I backed off and I waited about 10 days or so. And then I went on and got an ID number, which I think is the first step, and then you can shop for different options. So, that all worked pretty well actually. There was this process where you have to qualify yourself, where you state your income, and there’s a step where you have to wait for them to send you back an email. So I reported my income and they sent me back an email that stated what my subsidy would be. So once they gave me my subsidy I went shopping on the site for different options. Yeah, it worked really smoothly.

S- Did you come across any other barriers?

M- No, Actually it was really nice in some ways because, I’ve never really shopped for insurance all that much but when I shop I like to compare. So, it made it really easy to compare different plans and you could actually see what each plan was offering and what the deductibles were and worst case scenario what your out of pocket expenses would be for a year. So, it was actually really smooth, for me. It was one site where you could compare a lot of different options.

S- About how long did it take you to get enrolled into a plan?

M- I like looking around websites. So, I probably spent about 45 minutes.

S- Are you happy with the plan you bought?

M- So far, I am. It’s great! So we went from paying $250 for a catastrophic plan to paying nothing for a better plan with better benefits. We decided to go for a Bronze plan. Because we’re both in pretty good health, neither of us really likes visiting doctors, and we don’t really use prescription medicine. So, we decided to use our subsidy to pay for a bronze plan. So, the silver plan is sort of the basic standard, I think, and a bronze plan is lower than that so it has a higher deductible and higher out of pocket expense. But, we decided since we don’t use doctors all that much, that we’d go for that. So what that meant was that the healthcare was free for us. I mean the subsidy covered the entire cost of a bronze plan. So, instead of paying $250 a month for our catastrophic plan, we’re paying nothing for a plan that will actually pay for a doctor’s visit and any kind of diagnostic tests. And has a lower out of pocket than our original catastrophic plan. So, it seems great! We’re happy!

S- What other elements does your plan include? Does it include dental or eye?

M- No, it doesn’t. No that’s quite a bit extra. I’ve never spent more on a dentist in a year than I have on dental insurance so I decided not to do it.

S- As an artist, what does it mean to have health insurance? How will this affect your life an artist now?

M- Well, yeah. So, we didn’t go from having no insurance. If I didn’t have any savings that I was trying to protect, I probably would have been uninsured, because $250 a month makes a big difference to me. So now I actually have $250 a month that I didn’t have before. Heck, that’s like selling a painting a month. So, it’s good. It helps a lot. As an artist, I’d say I’m living pretty close to the edge. I mean, yeah, there’s some months when you do fine and there’s some months where you go, “Does anyone buy anything ever?” So you never know quite what your income is going to be. So it gives us a little bit more of a buffer.

S- Is there anything specific you can do now that you have insurance that maybe you weren’t able to do before?

M- For sure, I will go see a doctor once a year to check my blood pressure and that sort of thing. Also with our savings, I’ve decided that I’m going to get a Thai Message once a month because I think that’s actually a health benefit. And I stand here a lot and my hands start to get kind of cramp-y from holding brushes all day. So, it would be really nice to get some sort of treatments like that. I also use the money toward yoga classes that I go to.  I mean I think that’s just about health maintenance, I guess preventative care.

S- What advice would you give to other people living in the State of New Mexico who don’t have health insurance?

M- Well, it’s easy to do. And it’s probably going to be free. So, it’s a really good idea. There’s just been so much misinformation out there: “What Obamacare is going to do to you,” “And it’s this terrible thing,” and kind of horrible things people have been saying. And it’s just ridiculous. So, it’s an easy way to get very affordable care. Particularly as an artist, if you haven’t been able to afford health insurance up until now, this is your ticket. It’s free, it’s easy, and it’ll improve your life I think. It’s good!

For Mark's Video Interview, Go To the this link: http://youtu.be/MukhQ76IGrs