Americans can’t afford the higher health insurance premiums that resulted from Congress’s refusal to extend federal tax credits.
Somehow, there’s always plenty of money for levying war, whether against Americans or others, as well as plenty of room to cut billionaires taxes. Just not enough for regular folks.
Thank GOD we Cut these so we can Afford Trump’s BALLROOM!
-LITERALLY Republican Voters!
Ballrooms, secret police and unprovoked war! Of course those are my TOP priorities! $10 gas and bodies in the streets USA USA USA
- GOP
Which won’t be paid by tax payers. BTW, we need a small private donation of public funds…
Y’all have jobs?
We need to end insurance in the US. Single payer healthcare entirely covered by taxes for necessary treatments. Very small copays at most and no stupid deductibles.
That being said… I did a double take to this:
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.”
NPs there make about 150k. Her husband is a construction contractor. These two have to make close to 300k (and absolutely well above 200k) and can absolutely afford a 5000/mo monthly nut between a 2500 mortgage and a 2500 health insurance plan.
Saying she works “three part time jobs” means she is per diem at three facilities. Those workers make even more than internal salaried ones typically.
Even if they pay 50% taxes, more than anybody in the entire country, their take home pay should be about 150k. 5000*12=60,000. You’re telling me you can’t live on 90k post tax (7,500/month) after housing costs? get real. Your husband is expected to drop about 15,000 per person on insurance as a business owner with business money. You’re choosing to be hourly contractor as an NP instead of internal that gets paid less. Nurses of all kinds have crazy shortages all over the country, tons retired after covid and staffing levels still haven’t caught up.
Just such a horrible example. There has to be better ones.
We need to eliminate the health insurance industry in this country, drug ads, and negotiate pricing with pharma companies about drug pricing like every other civilized country does. Single payer healthcare is the way… and selling people on this shit isn’t talking about high paying upper middle class families as the sob story isn’t going to do it.
You’re not taking into account how people budget.
Child care and car payments are also huge chunks of a family’s expense. They make too much for child care subsidies and contracting means a truck payment.
They real issue is the need to absorb a $2200 per month increase in their existing budget with little notice. Their actually budget not some random internet strangers ideal budget.
Also that’s $26k a year just for health in. They are better off rolling the dice and paying out of pocket at cash discount prices.
93rd percentile of income in a household like that. So solidly into the top 10% of earners in the US.
Given that Megan is 49, their kid is pretty much guaranteed to not be in daycare.
Almost everybody needs a vehicle for work in the US. A work truck may cost a little bit more than a budget car but the numbers just don’t add up. If his business is making so little that the truck payment is putting them under, they have other, bigger problems with the business.
I wouldn’t want to risk being without health insurance around 50 though. 26k is like one incident causing a couple nights stay in a hospital.
all this being said… I know how to budget. I’m not a kid. I have a mortgage and all kinds of other things going on and I know healthcare costs… my wife maxes out her deductible well before April every single year. These people are not the norm, even if it may be a ‘normal’ income to people like us. They don’t need the subsidy anywhere near as bad as the other 90%
The people at the bottom aren’t interacting with NYT reporters at a Nazi bar