[chrishynes]

"The very year ACA took effect my health plan was canceled, my doctor went off-network, my new plan had 3x the annual premium and has grown 30% year over year, and I fight tooth and nail every single charge to make sure it is in network and covered."

Same here, and I hear the same exact story from most people I talk to. Plans dropped, premiums skyrocketing. Here in Phoenix we've got a single insurer left, and we'll see if we have anybody next year.

What I haven't seen is stories of average joes who were substantially helped by ACA. Sure, if you didn't have coverage before by cost or pre-existing condition, or get subsidies now, maybe you're happier. But the vast middle class, not so much.

[drewbuschhorn]

Post ACA I'm able to get my wife insured (congenital heart issue fixed forever at 14, still used to deny her coverage at 27), and my premiums dropped. We're rather firmly middle class, pretty sure I didn't qualify for any health subsidies, I think student loan deduction and mortgage were it.

So there's a face for you, 32 year old, healthy, middle class, white woman who likes cats, rides horses, and has a pet bearded dragon who she talks to in a baby voice can get regular cancer screenings because of ACA.

[kobeya]

Healthy was the key word there.

[Frondo]

Average joe here: pre-ACA, I was uninsurable. My pre-existing condition was having had an organ removed in my 20s. No one would insure me when I went to buy it.

Post-ACA, I could once again buy health insurance.

I consider no longer being locked out of the US medical system a substantial help.

[kevinmchugh]

My partner is middle-class and was able to pursue education and a career more freely because she could remain on parent's isurance until age 26. By the time she hit 26, she was on her employer's insurance.

Consider also the not middle-class recipients of medicaid expansion.