Alright, readers, it is the first full week of November, which means that Healthcare.gov is open for business!

This is the time that you can go to the website and see if you qualify for subsidies given out by the Affordable Care Act, or the ACA. Side note: I refuse to call it Obamacare. That's a stupid name, and it was branded by Republicans in a derogatory and condescending manner. Call the law for what it is. Continuing on, this year's open enrollment is different. Due to Donald Trump's interference, open enrollment is only open until December 15.

Full disclosure: I use the ACA for health care.

I signed up last year, and I've been pretty happy with the coverage. I was able to get a physical after many years and take care of things that I should do on a yearly basis. I'm healthy, thank goodness, but I easily could be not healthy. This is what I want people to understand. The ACA makes healthcare accessible to people like me, people who work jobs that don't offer health care. So, I'm all for it. This doesn't mean that I'm blind to its problems, and it does have problems. The main one is in order to qualify for the subsidies, you have to make in between a certain price range. If you are below that price range, then you automatically qualify for Medicaid...which only half of the states have accepted the Medicaid expansion. If you live in a state that did, then congratulation, you now have Medicaid coverage. If not, then you have one of two options. You can either pay for the full coverage out of your own pocket (this is the really expensive option that most lower income people can't afford), or you can forego health care, but you don't have to pay the IRS penalty. Now, if you go over the limit, you also have two options available. You can either pay for coverage yourself, or you can pay the IRS penalty. Both are kind of expensive, and both are a raw deal. This is probably the most glaring part of the ACA that needs to get fixed. Unfortunately, with this administration in the White House and our inept Congress, that's probably not going to happen any time soon.

There's another huge problem with the ACA, and it's one that this unfortunate writer is experiencing. As I mentioned earlier, I use the ACA health care marketplace for health insurance. My provider is Cigna. I recently received a letter in the mail from them saying that my rates would go up. I wasn't surprised at this news because I knew it would happen. Donald Trump signed at least two executive orders that weakened the ACA. One of them was the very first executive order he ever signed, and if you want to know about it, check it out here. Crazy, right? Anyway, I knew that these destabilizing orders would affect the market with a price increase. I don't know why, but I had 20% stuck in my head, so that's what I figured it would be. I thought I was prepared. I wasn't.

The letter informed me that my premium skyrocket from a meager $21 a month to $200 a month! That's a 2,000% increase! I almost cried. By the by, this is with everything staying the same. No increase in service and no decrease in my subsidy. If Donald Trump wanted to throw a monkey wrench in the health care system, he definitely succeeded. Currently, I will be unable to afford this premium, and I will have to let this coverage go.

However, I'm not giving up. I plan on surfing the health marketplace for insurance. I still have hope because I read recently that despite the Trump interference and fewer providers, people are signing up for health care through the marketplace at higher numbers from last year. This is a good thing. Maybe people are finally understanding how important the ACA is. It doesn't solve everything, but it's a much better alternative than going back to how it was.