
Unless you’ve lived without health insurance, you have no idea how scary it is - dwaxe
http://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/3/14/14907348/health-insurance-uninsured-ahca-obamacare
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shams93
Yeah this is my life right now, employer won't offer it, 44 years old can't
afford Obamacare either. Have 25 years experience in the industry but
unfortunately it seems the older you get the less valuable you are to society
in general despite being better at what you do than at any other point in your
career.

~~~
Gibbon1
What I like is you can have health insurance for years, lose your job get sick
and then end up bankrupt despite paying in for decades.

I had to pay about $600/m for meds for a several years as I was contracting to
get back into the industry. $600/mo after tax is kinda painful when you're
earning $2000-3000 month and have to pay $900/mo rent.

After I got insurance through my employer it was a copay of $50/mo. After the
ACA $10 copay. Kicker though the drugs I take have been 're-patented'
otherwise they'd have been a few $ a month all along.

I try to be a funny guy, this isn't funny.

------
mattbgates
I got to experience what life was like without health insurance and believe
me, it was a horrible experience. It was just after Hurricane Sandy in New
Jersey and my place had basically been underwater, about 4 feet of water. I
lost a few electronics, but I had tried to save the clothes I had.
Unfortunately, there was no power for a few days, so I just threw them in the
trunk of my car, a hatchback, damp. Little did I know this would cause a
sickness in me that I could not get rid of until the clothes were gone.

Mold was pretty much everywhere. Houses were moldy. Anything that got wet had
a nasty ocean smell to it. It was rancid and horrid. My car and I probably
smelled horrible. I was living out of my car for about a week or two and when
you live paycheck to paycheck, you try to preserve whatever you have.
Unfortunately, I forgot to fill my gas tank and it was almost impossible to
get gas in the days after the hurricane. I still had to go to work and my
boss, who was unaffected, was extremely unforgiving for the day or two I took
off. But I had been sleeping out of my car, in cold weather, because I could
not even turn it on to warm up, as my gas was low and I needed whatever gas
would get me to work.

I had no health insurance and got sick to the point where I was coughing up a
lung and could barely breathe. I thought I was going to die. My lungs
literally felt like they were collapsing every time I took a breath. Trying to
visit the doctor would have cost me about $300 out of pocket. Fortunately, on
Saturdays my doctor had started this program where he charged $100 flat-fees
for walk-ins. This did not cover the cost of anything that he prescribed.

So on top of that $100, he prescribed me some antibiotics for bronchitis and
some other medicine from an inhaler, which would cost me an additional $200.
So on top of being low on gas, having no food for several days, no place to
live or do laundry, I had to scramble together, even asking my boss for my
(lousy) paycheck in advance just so I could afford the medicine I needed.
After a day or two, he hesitantly did end up giving me an advance. The
medicine barely did anything for me. It wasn't until at least a week later
when I finally got to washing my clothes and cleaning out my car that I had
learned of the mold hanging out in my car, on my clothes, and causing me to be
severely sick.

It was really a devastating time in my life. I now have a pretty good job that
offers healthcare, and although I don't agree with Obamacare, and I hate the
fact that I have to pay $150 out of every paycheck or face a penalty for
something I barely use, I wish there was a better way to make healthcare more
affordable. Where is the money going if I don't go to the doctor? I don't ever
see it again. So it is a healthcare tax, yet another thing that takes more
money out of my paycheck.

I would rather see EVERYTHING we purchase in the United States--the
supermarket, the mall, the corner store, fast food, gasoline, luxury items,
Amazon, etc.--all raised by at least 10-20 cents. That 10-20 cent tax on every
single item that people purchase would create universal healthcare for
everyone living in the United States. And it would be EVERYONE CONTRIBUTING
towards healthcare, not just a group of people that make X amount a year.

~~~
Gibbon1
> and although I don't agree with Obamacare, and I hate the fact that I have
> to pay $150 out of every paycheck or face a penalty for something I barely
> use, I wish there was a better way to make healthcare more affordable.

This is the damming image that describes perfectly what's happening with US
'market driven' healthcare.

[https://cdn.thestandard.org.nz/wp-
content/uploads/2017/03/he...](https://cdn.thestandard.org.nz/wp-
content/uploads/2017/03/health-expenditure-vs-life-expectancy-620x601.png)

Thing is our politicians know about this, know what needs to be done, and
refuse to do anything because it would piss off the people that matter.

