I went about eight years without health insurance because I was freelance and in NYC it was somewhere around $550 per month for the worst of plans for a perfect

I went about eight years without health insurance because I was freelance and in NYC it was somewhere around $550 per month for the worst of plans for a perfectly healthy twentysomething with no medical conditions whatsoever (besides being a smoker at the time) I ended up taking a job at a start-up when I turned 30 because I figured at 30 I should probably start going to the doctor more often and it was the only way I could afford health insurance. I was finally able to go back to freelance a little over a year ago because a decent plan only cost about $700 total per month for both me AND my wife, and She has pre-existing conditions, which is to say she had gone even longer without insurance before we'd met. I was merely hedging bets according to my age. She actually needs it. Of course, BCBS-IL keep cancelling our plans as is their apparent loophole to raise rates. Because even though the non-profit had a surplus of 14B in early 2016, the absolutely perfect plan we were on wasn't making enough money for them, so they killed it. That's twice in a row, so we switched to Cigna this year, which I don't assume will be much better. It's expensive,. They're all expensive, whether I use the marketplace or not. But they're nowhere near as expensive as they were four years ago. Especially for my wife who literally could not be insured before the ACA.