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And from The Washington Post, here are real stories about real people and the Obamacare journey they find themselves on – or not on. Each little snapshot explains a part of the new plan.

Here’s the upshot of a couple of them:

Fatima Abukar has not had health insurance since arriving in the United States from Somalia a decade ago. The health law won’t change that. She is one of millions of people too poor to benefit from Obamacare.

Abukar, a legal resident, used to work at a nonprofit thrift store, but now relies on her children, with whom she lives, for financial support. … Abukar doesn’t qualify for Medicaid; Virginia has one of the strictest Medicaid standards in the country.

And she won’t benefit from the Medicaid expansion. About half the states, including Virginia, have declined to take part.

About 8 million people who under the law would have been eligible for expanded Medicaid live in states that have decided not to participate, according to the Urban Institute.

And another:

Two years ago, King Labule lost his health insurance when his father got sick and stopped working. His parents couldn’t afford to buy a plan on their own.

“Right now, I guess I’m just winging it,” said Labule, who is a bouncer at a lounge near Dupont Circle and works as a dishwasher at another restaurant. …

Next year, Labule expects to make less than $10,000. That would make him eligible for Maryland’s expanded Medicaid program.

Most state Medicaid programs have traditionally excluded childless adults. But the health-care law called for anyone with an income at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level (about $15,400 for an individual or $31,400 for a family of four) to be covered by the Medicaid expansion.

Meet Aniela:

Aniela Russo vividly remembers how it felt to have a heart attack: It was January 2012 and she was working as a make-up artist at a charity benefit.

“I wasn’t feeling well, I had numbness in my right arm, I felt really fatigued,” she said. “I was one of the senior make-up artists there and my boss said to tough it out.”

The middle-aged single mother of three had heart bypass surgery that Valentine’s Day, and since then has had multiple surgeries for a genetic heart condition. Russo is unemployed, and she and her two youngest children are covered by Medicaid.

But Russo is about to go back to work as a self-employed real estate agent, and her income will probably rise enough that she will be ineligible for Medicaid.

That means she’ll be turning to the Maryland marketplace to buy private insurance. Before the Affordable Care Act, she assumes she would have been rejected because of her medical history. She figures she never would have passed an insurer’s physical.

“If they look at me, they’re going to see I have all these scars,” Russo said.

The health law bars insurers from rejecting people with preexisting medical conditions, or charging them more.

If Russo earns about $30,000 next year, as she’s expecting, she would qualify for a $350 monthly subsidy to purchase family coverage on the exchange.
She would pay $104 a month for a moderately priced plan, and have no premium at all for the cheapest one.

Besides cost, she has another big question: Will she be able to see her same doctors? That answer isn’t in.

Interesting stories. There are more here: The Washington Post.

More stories about health.

Photo credit: Vladislav Kochelaevs – Fotolia.com