The forty-year Republican project to make Americans sicker and poorer is bearing fruit.

Free link: nytimes.com - Obamacare enrollment decline

...When Joyce Rena Bumbray-Graves, a 63-year-old home care worker from Woodbridge, Va., saw premiums for her husband and herself more than double, from $544 a month to over $1,300, she had to give up her insurance. Ms. Bumbray-Graves, a member of the Service Employees International Union, recently appeared before Congress to talk about her experience.

Her husband switched to coverage through his job, but adding her was too expensive. She says that she is relatively healthy, although she is struggling to pay for prescriptions and doctors’ visits. “I’m just hoping I don’t get sick or anything,” she said in an interview.

Megan Burkett, 49, a nurse practitioner in Arroyo Grande, Calif., dropped coverage for herself, her husband and her son in the face of escalating costs. She is working three part-time jobs, none of which offer health insurance. Her husband, a contractor, is self-employed and also does not have coverage from work. When she went to sign up for A.C.A. coverage for this year, she found the policy for her family would cost roughly $2,500 a month, in line with her mortgage payment. That contrasts with the $307 a month she paid when she qualified for a federal subsidy last year.

“On paper, I have a really good job and salary,” Ms. Burkett said. “I can’t afford a second mortgage every month.”

Jessica Altman, who runs the Covered California marketplace, said she had seen real declines in enrollment among customers with incomes like Ms. Burkett’s. The state is offering extra subsidies to help poorer residents, but not this higher income group.

“I’m not surprised,” she said, about the numbers. “It doesn’t make it any less sad to see.”