In the late 1980s, I had a $1 million catastrophic insurance policy for under $200 a year.

That’s right, healthcare for less than $17 a month with $1 million in coverage and a $5,000 deductible which covered emergency care.

Today, lack of access for working families and their children to preventative medicine may be one of the biggest obstacles to our country’s productivity and health. It was recently reported that there were 80,000-plus extra deaths in 2016 related to Obamacare and workers who couldn’t afford preventative medicine.

Further, more than 25 million Obama victims lost their healthcare plan or doctor during Obama and his implementation of the ACA Affordable Care Act.

Today, a typical working mother and family must pay the government about $1,200 per-month for the same policy that should only cost about $500 per month in today’s dollars.

Basically, your policy cost, if you have a job, was more than doubled by Mr. Obama.

As for health insurance rates before Obama, “the average flat-rate premium paid by private industry workers increased from $67.57 per month for single coverage in 2004 to $92.43 per month for single coverage in 2009, and from $264.59 per month for family coverage in 2004 to $349.36 per month for family coverage in 2009.”

Under Obama’s system, your silver health insurance plan would cost: $1,126 per month ($13,506 per year). This would be (18% of your household income for a two-earner family making only $75,000 a year.

Further, a typical family is ineligible for any help or subsidies, and the workers must pay federal, state, and city taxes on all of their income after paying retail prices for health care and medical products. Then, if you have an Obama plan, you must pay the full deductible before your coverage truly begins to help you with costs.

You deductible for each child would be a few thousand dollars per year. “Deductibles for the most popular type of Obamacare plans are also rising, to nearly $4,000 on average, in 2018.”

“A silver plan has an actuarial value of 70%. This means that for all enrollees in a typical population, the plan will pay for 70% of expenses in total for covered benefits, with enrollees responsible for the rest.”

Before Obama, a healthy family would pay about $4,800 per year for full family coverage and office visits with a small co-pay. Under the Obama plans, each healthy working-family must pay $14,000 or more per year.

Further, a working mother or dad must pay $4,000 or up to $7,000 of deductibles before the Obama style insurance will even help a worker with medical payments.

However, people who choose not to work, pay nothing for regular visits, do not pay for emergency visits, and still receive catastrophic healthcare for free.

As we now know, you do not get to keep your doctor under the Obama rules. Under Obama’s plan, there are so many flaws that they say you must pay for pregnancy coverage even if you are 90 years old.

Thus, the costs of Obama plans are artificially high due to the one size fits all packages.

The nasty truth is that emergency room visits before Obama were a much cheaper form of preventative medicine than what is available now because nobody can afford to go to the doctor or an emergency room.

As a note, progressive states like Louisiana already had free healthcare for the needy for decades, and when Obama came to office, it ruined the safety net for millions of people in Louisiana, including working moms and veterans.

President Donald Trump has begun to allow healthy folks to choose catastrophic plans that are cheaper and with targeted services and coverage. These new plans are called association healthcare plans.

In general, these are catastrophic plans with stipulated terms designed for the healthy minded individual.

In retrospect, I just want the government to legalize the affordable catastrophic health protection policy that I had in the late 1980s, but I doubt it will happen.

The administration has a chance to fix this economic problem for the working taxpayers of this country. We all hope that relief can be granted to America’s working families.

George Mentz JD MBA CWM Chartered Wealth Manager ® is a licensed attorney and CEO of GAFM ® global education, which is an ISO 29990 Certified professional development company operating in over 50 nations. Mentz is an award winning author and advisory board member to several companies around the world in education, charities, and crypto currency.