By John Croman, Kare – April 6, 2022
Minnesotans who pressed to change the Affordable Care Act’s “family glitch” attended White House ceremony where President Biden signed an executive order fixing it.
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.”
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