PITTSBURGH —Outside Simonetta’s Collision and Car Care in McKeesport, it's a frigid 2 degrees.

“What I have here is the benefits sheet from last year. What you were on in 2013," said Charles Moore, co-owner of Triangle Benefits Service and the broker who has handled the company's group health insurance for 19 years. "Here is the new plan we had to switch to that takes into account the Obamacare regulations.”

For the first time, employees were finding out how the Affordable Care Act will affect their medical coverage and how much they'll pay for it.

Last year’s 6 percent premium increase has now exploded to an average 32 percent jump.

"That 32 percent increase includes increasing the deductible, as well to try and get something modestly priced,” Moore explained.

Jeff and Dave used to have a $1,250 deductible. Since Obamacare went into effect, it's now jumped 60 percent to $2,000.

That's nothing compared with Brian, Christy and Judy who have kids. They'll pay twice that at $4,000.

"This was the best option we could find," Moore said.

Co-pays are up too.

Pediatric dental and vision exams are covered -- a bonus for some employees, but not for others. Generic drugs are also significantly cheaper.

Employees took time weighing in on what they thought of their new deal.

"The deductible is terrible," said Dave, a 47-year-old with no kids. "I mean, how many people can come up with that deductible money if they go into the emergency room?"

His monthly premium goes up modestly by $50.

Christy's not so lucky. The monthly premium for the mother of two jumps $260, or 30 percent.

"Eight-hundred and $95 a month for health insurance, that's coming out of my pocket," she said. "That's a house payment for most people."

Brian actually saves $77 a month, but the 39-year-old with one child said he can't afford his new $4,000 family deductible.
"It's going to be a pretty big hit in the pocket," he said.
And 42-year-old Jeff's in the same boat.

“They call it the affordable health plan," he said. "There's nothing affordable about it. I can't afford it."

Jeff's new premium is only $28 more a month.

But he said he'll have to suck it up if he ever gets hurt because his new deductible is too much.

"Wake up, America. This isn't acceptable. It's not acceptable," he said.

But it's Judy, the 53-year-old mother of one, who gets hit the worst.

Her premium goes up from $929 a month to $1,316 – 42-percent increase added to her new $4,000 deductible.

"How do you add all that together?" she asked.

"What are you going to do?” questioned Channel 4 Action News anchor Wendy Bell.

“I don't know,” she replied with tears in her eyes.
With tears in her eyes, Judy responds slowly... "I don't know."

Back in the shop, Simonetta has his own worries. His monthly premium just jumped $584.

"The small business is the heart of America. How's that going to affect everybody? It's not good," Simonetta said.
And Moore, the broker, agrees.

"One size does not fit all in medical insurance. And unfortunately, that's one of the big down sides to the Affordable Care Act," he said.

Downsides that leave Judy wondering if she can afford to ever get sick.

"I don't know how President Obama thinks he's helping us," she said. "Because we can't afford this. We can't afford to pay these co-pays, to pay these deductibles, on what we're making."

Tens of thousands of people who discovered that HealthCare.gov made mistakes as they were signing up for a health plan are confronting a new roadblock: The government cannot yet fix the errors.

Roughly 22,000 Americans have filed appeals with the government to try to get mistakes corrected, according to internal government data obtained by The Washington Post. They contend that the computer system for the new federal online marketplace charged them too much for health insurance, steered them into the wrong insurance program or denied them coverage entirely.

For now, the appeals are sitting, untouched, inside a government computer. And an unknown number of consumers who are trying to get help through less formal means — by calling the health-care marketplace directly — are told that HealthCare.gov’s computer system is not yet allowing federal workers to go into enrollment records and change them, according to individuals inside and outside the government who are familiar with the situation.

...

My plan was canceled last fall. According to the regulators behind ObamaCare, it was a subpar plan that should no longer be sold to consumers. Another 16,000 Tennesseans on the same plan were similarly dumped. Many, like me, liked their plans and wanted to keep them.

This wasn’t my insurer’s fault at all. CoverTN actually fought for me to keep my health care. After I received my cancellation notice, the folks at CoverTN requested that the federal government give them a waiver, which would let them grandfather my plan into ObamaCare. Their request was rejected.

This left me with no health plan and only one choice: Buy a plan through the ObamaCare exchanges.

After weighing my options, I settled on a “platinum” plan. This was the best plan that I could choose. A “bronze,” “silver” or “gold” plan all would leave me paying exorbitant amounts of money on my frequent, and expensive, trips to doctors and specialists.
But the platinum plan was the lesser of two expensive evils. My new plan costs me $373 a month, even after a small subsidy.

By comparison, my old plan only cost me $57 a month. And I now pay 25 percent co-insurance on all doctor visits until I reach my out-of-pocket maximum of $1,500. This is much higher than under CoverTN.

All told, I’m likely going to pay more than $6,000 more each year for my medical care.
I’ve had to take a second job in order to pay for my ObamaCare plan. Given my health problems, the physical and emotional drain that this puts on me is difficult to bear. It’s also made it much more difficult for me to care for my ailing mother, who depends on me for help.

For me, the impact of ObamaCare is a health plan that is both unaffordable and uncaring. For a law named “The Affordable Care Act,” this is both backward and perverse.

It’s also not what you promised me when I voted for you, Mr. President. When you were on the campaign trail, you promised that ObamaCare would help me with my medical problems. You promised that people like me with pre-existing conditions would be better off. And you promised that if I liked my health-care plan, I could keep it.

Mr. President, you’ve now broken all of these promises — and not just to me.

Facing a $78 million budget shortfall, California’s Obamacare exchange has spent $1.37 million to fund an outreach video featuring exercise guru Richard Simmons gyrating on the floor and hugging a contortionist who is kneeling with his buttocks in the air.

The “Tell a Friend — Get Covered” campaign by Covered California features other celebrities Olivia Wilde, comic Billy Eirchner, Fran Drescher and Tatyana Ali. The centerpiece of the effort was an eight-hour live web stream that ran on Jan. 16.

White House officials sent out pre-formed tweets to the NFL players union to get former and current football stars to tout Obamacare on game day, the Washington Free Beacon reports.

Kyle Lierman, a White House Office of Public Engagement liaison, emailed a representative at the NFL Players Association Sunday, encouraging players to tweet in support of Obamacare during the Super Bowl and promising retweets and increased coverage in return. According to the Free Beacon’s sources, NFL union officials sent on Lierman’s request to marketing reps for various players...

During a Google Hangout session on Friday, fry cook Darnell Summers told President Obama that his hours were cut due to the Affordable Care Act. “We were broken down to part time to avoid paying health insurance,” he said. Summers explained that he makes $7.25 an hour and has been on strike four times seeking a wage increase. “We can’t survive, it’s not livin’,” he said.

The president responded by urging states to increase the minimum wage. “I am working to encourage states, governors, mayors, state legislators to raise their own minimum wage,” Obama said. “Obviously, the way to reach millions of people would be for Congress to pass a new federal minimum wage law. So far, at least, we have not seen support from Republicans for such a move.”

The president did not address Summers’s comments about the healthcare law.