8 ms·

An ACA silver plan means you have a $4500 deductible. You will NEVER go to a doctor. You will also not have sick leave, and if you don't show up for your random

An ACA silver plan means you have a $4500 deductible. You will NEVER go to a doctor. You will also not have sick leave, and if you don't show up for your randomly timed work shift you will be fired. Thats if you get hours in the first place. So you pay your $500 for rent. Add 150 for utilities. Add 200 for gas and 50 for car insurance since you're gonna be living in a rural place. Thats 900 for a roof and ability to pay for it. Now you have $600 a month for food and literally any other expense. Say you never eat out and use staples like rice and beans as the basis for every dish, thats $250 a month (maybe you can squeeze out another $50, but one must have a slight bit of slack for say, a single gallon of ice cream per month). $350 for everything else. Entertainment. A gym membership. Your medical deductible. Your sanity.

yellowapple 6y ago
So to put the below in context: my first job (at the tail end of the last recession) paid around $12-13 an hour, and was enough to survive with more than double that rent figure. Granted, I had a couple factors on my side (namely: my grandparents in the next town over, who would insist on stocking my fridge and cupboards with the essentials), but even if I hadn't it was workable, even if not comfortable. I also didn't pay for health insurance at the time (I wasn't eligible for work-provided insurance until shortly before I switched jobs), since I think this was right before the ACA's individual mandate made it "mandatory". That all being to say: $10/hr full time does not in the slightest bit seem unreasonable to me, even if I do strongly believe that workers deserve better than that. ---- > Add 200 for gas and 50 for car insurance since you're gonna be living in a rural place. Or a bike, which is a thing, that people ride to and from work, even in "rural" areas. No gas and no insurance, even for an electric one (and those have come down quite a bit in price, to the point where the only cheaper cars are absolute beaters). Even "rural" cities/towns often have buses, too. They don't always have the most exhaustive coverage, but bikes can make up for that for the "last mile" of each way's commute (especially if the bus has a bike rack on it, which is becoming increasingly common for exactly this reason and because it's relatively cheap compared to the cost of the bus itself). > $350 for everything else. Entertainment. A gym membership. Your medical deductible. Your sanity. You don't need a gym membership to work out (as I'm sure most of us trying to get even basic fitness in can attest over the last couple months, what with all those gyms being shut down). Jogging, hiking, bicycling, pushups, planks, jumping jacks, shovelgloving¹... all dirt cheap to do (if you don't go overboard and splurge on fancy bikes or backpacks or whatever; the basics will work fine). If you happen to live in a snowy area, snow shoveling is a good workout, too, and helps out your neighbors (you might even get paid for it). All of those things can double for entertainment and "sanity", too, so that just leaves the medical deductible. That $350 would give you enough savings to cover that deductible in a bit over a year (even faster if you throw in the aforementioned $250 you'd be saving without a car). Anything past that is pure savings, enough to eventually buy a used car for the occasional out-of-town trip, or to eat out every once in awhile, or what have you. ---- ¹: http://shovelglove.com/ http://shovelglove.com/
- maaarghk 6y ago
  Read the word "granted" and disregarded the rest of the post. Trying to pass off your experience as some kind of canonical working class struggle when you don't need to pay for food is about as tone deaf as it gets, not to mention starting it with "to put that into context" as if you have ANY idea what that context is. I can tell you're just like "well, the poors can just ride bikes" having never ridden one yourself, otherwise you would know that a bike that you could cycle a 40km to 60km round commute on in a rural area is gonna set you back $2k and you won't get finance on it the way you do with a car, not to mention the fact that the cycling clothes you would need to buy to cover rural distances are mostly in the designer category and therefore very expensive. Not to mention your mechanical service, which if you're commuting daily is probably $80 every six months plus any parts which wear out, $15 for brake pads, $5 every time you puncture any wheel, $60 for new tyres every year, and the occasional unexpected uninsurable $200 "bottom bracket, crank and chainring all wore out at once" repair.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    > Read the word "granted" and disregarded the rest of the post. Trying to pass off your experience as some kind of canonical working class struggle when you don't need to pay for food is about as tone deaf as it gets, not to mention starting it with "to put that into context" as if you have ANY idea what that context is. No, you’re the one lacking context. Most low wage workers are young, and the median American lives 18 miles away from their mom. People making $10/hour living on their own for the first time who have parents or grandparents randomly drop by with food is a very common scenario. People making $10/hour trying to support a family is not. Also, the notion of biking 60 km round trip in rural areas strongly suggests you’ve never been to one. Someone working a $10 service job in a rural county isn’t commuting 30 km each way. My wife grew up in Sibley, Iowa. It’s about a mile and a half across North to south, and less than that East to west. The apartments are all in town, and so are the stores. The people who might need to commute longer are farmers and farm hands, but they make a lot more money. The average farm hand in Iowa with a high school education or less makes $30-40k/year: https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/wholefarm/html/c1-60.html https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/wholefarm/html/c1-60.... (The hours are long, so it works out to $12-15/hour.) They’re not riding bikes.
swiley 6y ago
>50 for car insurance since you're gonna be living in a rural place. Thats 900 for a roof and ability to pay for it. Someone in this situation is not paying cash for a car so there's probably $100-$200 for a car loan on top of that.
threatofrain 6y ago
Also small employers are generally exempt from contributing to programs that help with employee healthcare or insurance.
zaroth 6y ago
There’s another level of subsidies called cost sharing reductions which bring the deductible/out-of-pocket expenses down as your income is reduced. At 150% FPL the Silver plan deductible falls from about $7,000 to $250, and your maximum annual out-of-pocket expenses falls from $7,300 to $550. At some point you hit full-on Medicaid which is, depending on the state, truly excellent insurance and totally free.
tigershark 6y ago
Almost 4 litres of ice cream per month? Every month? And someone wonders why there are so many type 2 diabetes cases...
- ryanwaggoner 6y ago
  That’s about 250 calories per day, which is pretty reasonable for a daily treat. And I actually looked it up and it’s about a half gallon per American per month. I wonder if that includes children too. Probably. And then factor in the mountains of other garbage we also eat...it’s honestly a miracle that we’re not more obese than we are.
- taurath 6y ago
  Forgot how big a regular thing of ice cream was :p
- jacobolus 6y ago
  1 gallon/month is 1 scoop of ice cream each on 5 or 6 days per week, or on average about 12–15 grams of sugar per day. It’s about the same amount of sugar you’d get from drinking one 12 oz can of soda every third day. If it’s the only sugary treat someone is eating, that’s still well below average for people in most industrialized countries. If combined with soda/candy/cake/cookies/cocktails/... then probably not such a good idea.
- r00fus 6y ago
  I presume this is for a family of 2-4; in that case it's arguably not much at all.
bhupy 6y ago
High deductible just means that you have to pay upfront for preventive care — like flu shots, bacterial checkups, and annual physicals. We pay out of pocket for tons of things, like food, clothing, and utilities. Insofar as this is undesirable, it's probably because the pricing system is impaired. If you have a financially ruinous healthcare event, the ACA silver plan saves you — that's the whole point of insurance.
- brianwawok 6y ago
  Annual physicals and flu shots are generally (possible ACA mandate?) free with no deductible. Maybe bad example choices?
  - bhupy 6y ago
    That's all the more reason why the higher deductible isn't inherently a bad thing, even most of the basic needs are covered. Outside of that, it's just catastrophic coverage, just like car insurance.
- taurath 6y ago
  No it doesn’t. If you go in with a cold, they check your temperature and give you some Tylenol you get charged $600 out of your pocket, until you meet the deductible. It’s the preventative care stuff that is /sometimes/ not counting against the deductible. Also literally any surgery is a financially ruinous healthcare event insured or not until you’re rich relative to the average person - I have the receipts of the tens of thousands of dollars of medical bills I’ve had to pay while insured to prove it.
rayiner 6y ago
> An ACA silver plan means you have a $4500 deductible. You will NEVER go to a doctor. Silver plans are eligible for Cost Sharing Reduction (reducing deductibles to $500-1,000), and pay for doctor’s visits before deductibles kick in. And preventative care has no co-pay and no deductible. > So you pay your $500 for rent. Add 150 for utilities. Add 200 for gas and 50 for car insurance since you're gonna be living in a rural place. How much do you think gas costs in Iowa? The median rural/town commuter travels about 1,150 miles per month. A 2000 Honda Civic gets 27 mpg. At $2/gallon for around 40 gallons a month, that’s under half your estimate. > Now you have $600 a month for food and literally any other expense. Say you never eat out and use staples like rice and beans as the basis for every dish, thats $250 a month (maybe you can squeeze out another $50, but one must have a slight bit of slack for say, a single gallon of ice cream per month). You are out of touch if you think $250 per month is a “rice and beans” food budget for a single person: https://mymoneywizard.com/how-i-spend-less-than-35-a-week-on-groceries-my-full-shopping-list-exposed https://mymoneywizard.com/how-i-spend-less-than-35-a-week-on... ($67 per week for two people). A weekly trip to Aldi for my family of five clocks in at about $100, and we don’t even try to save money. > $350 for everything else. Entertainment. A gym membership. Your medical deductible. Your sanity. In central Illinois, you can have a sit-down meal for $10, less if ethnic food. Coffee is a buck. The Y near my house is $40/month for a very nice place with heated indoor pool, and making minimum wage you qualify for financial aid. The county one, which is also nice, is $25/month. Netflix is $13/month. A Verizon MVNO is $35/month. In Iowa City, you can get $1-2 well drinks four days a week: https://www.brothersbar.com/iowacity https://www.brothersbar.com/iowacity.
- taurath 6y ago
  > Silver plans are eligible for Cost Sharing Reduction (reducing deductibles to $500-1,000), and pay for doctor’s visits before deductibles kick in You’re right about the deductible - after doing the math I saw that youd qualify for the 150->400% bracket of the federal poverty level. But can you afford 3 weeks pay for that $750 deductible? On top of other stuff? > You are out of touch if you think $250 per month is a “rice and beans” food budget for a single person I didn't say it was only rice and beans, but a cheap diet consisting of the cheapest carbs. The USDA has it around $180 as the absolute cheapest per person. Your money wizard person lives in the cheapest area of the country. I'll bet they have a stocked kitchen as well so they never need to buy spices. https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/media/file/CostofFoodMay2020.pdf https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/media/fil... > In central Illinois Having been thru Normal/Bloomington and Champaign, it’s extremely reasonable in price as rentals are dirt cheap, as long as you’re going to aldi. $1-2 well drinks aren’t a thing in a lot of the country. Coffee isn’t a dollar since the 90s. Your original example was between DC and baltimore. Things aren't so cheap there. Oh, and I forgot about the actual premium cost of the silver plan, which is around $200 per month. Sorry, but you're going into debt or homelessness the second your hours get cut. You have no stability. The smallest thing going wrong will ruin you. Have you seen the absolute hordes of people going into just APPLY for section 8? https://youtu.be/Q5ocjZ9GatA?t=140 https://youtu.be/Q5ocjZ9GatA?t=140

yellowapple 6y ago

So to put the below in context: my first job (at the tail end of the last recession) paid around $12-13 an hour, and was enough to survive with more than double that rent figure. Granted, I had a couple factors on my side (namely: my grandparents in the next town over, who would insist on stocking my fridge and cupboards with the essentials), but even if I hadn't it was workable, even if not comfortable. I also didn't pay for health insurance at the time (I wasn't eligible for work-provided insurance until shortly before I switched jobs), since I think this was right before the ACA's individual mandate made it "mandatory". That all being to say: $10/hr full time does not in the slightest bit seem unreasonable to me, even if I do strongly believe that workers deserve better than that. ---- > Add 200 for gas and 50 for car insurance since you're gonna be living in a rural place. Or a bike, which is a thing, that people ride to and from work, even in "rural" areas. No gas and no insurance, even for an electric one (and those have come down quite a bit in price, to the point where the only cheaper cars are absolute beaters). Even "rural" cities/towns often have buses, too. They don't always have the most exhaustive coverage, but bikes can make up for that for the "last mile" of each way's commute (especially if the bus has a bike rack on it, which is becoming increasingly common for exactly this reason and because it's relatively cheap compared to the cost of the bus itself). > $350 for everything else. Entertainment. A gym membership. Your medical deductible. Your sanity. You don't need a gym membership to work out (as I'm sure most of us trying to get even basic fitness in can attest over the last couple months, what with all those gyms being shut down). Jogging, hiking, bicycling, pushups, planks, jumping jacks, shovelgloving¹... all dirt cheap to do (if you don't go overboard and splurge on fancy bikes or backpacks or whatever; the basics will work fine). If you happen to live in a snowy area, snow shoveling is a good workout, too, and helps out your neighbors (you might even get paid for it). All of those things can double for entertainment and "sanity", too, so that just leaves the medical deductible. That $350 would give you enough savings to cover that deductible in a bit over a year (even faster if you throw in the aforementioned $250 you'd be saving without a car). Anything past that is pure savings, enough to eventually buy a used car for the occasional out-of-town trip, or to eat out every once in awhile, or what have you. ---- ¹: http://shovelglove.com/ http://shovelglove.com/

maaarghk 6y ago
Read the word "granted" and disregarded the rest of the post. Trying to pass off your experience as some kind of canonical working class struggle when you don't need to pay for food is about as tone deaf as it gets, not to mention starting it with "to put that into context" as if you have ANY idea what that context is. I can tell you're just like "well, the poors can just ride bikes" having never ridden one yourself, otherwise you would know that a bike that you could cycle a 40km to 60km round commute on in a rural area is gonna set you back $2k and you won't get finance on it the way you do with a car, not to mention the fact that the cycling clothes you would need to buy to cover rural distances are mostly in the designer category and therefore very expensive. Not to mention your mechanical service, which if you're commuting daily is probably $80 every six months plus any parts which wear out, $15 for brake pads, $5 every time you puncture any wheel, $60 for new tyres every year, and the occasional unexpected uninsurable $200 "bottom bracket, crank and chainring all wore out at once" repair.
- rayiner 6y ago
  > Read the word "granted" and disregarded the rest of the post. Trying to pass off your experience as some kind of canonical working class struggle when you don't need to pay for food is about as tone deaf as it gets, not to mention starting it with "to put that into context" as if you have ANY idea what that context is. No, you’re the one lacking context. Most low wage workers are young, and the median American lives 18 miles away from their mom. People making $10/hour living on their own for the first time who have parents or grandparents randomly drop by with food is a very common scenario. People making $10/hour trying to support a family is not. Also, the notion of biking 60 km round trip in rural areas strongly suggests you’ve never been to one. Someone working a $10 service job in a rural county isn’t commuting 30 km each way. My wife grew up in Sibley, Iowa. It’s about a mile and a half across North to south, and less than that East to west. The apartments are all in town, and so are the stores. The people who might need to commute longer are farmers and farm hands, but they make a lot more money. The average farm hand in Iowa with a high school education or less makes $30-40k/year: https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/wholefarm/html/c1-60.html https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/wholefarm/html/c1-60.... (The hours are long, so it works out to $12-15/hour.) They’re not riding bikes.

swiley 6y ago

>50 for car insurance since you're gonna be living in a rural place. Thats 900 for a roof and ability to pay for it. Someone in this situation is not paying cash for a car so there's probably $100-$200 for a car loan on top of that.

threatofrain 6y ago

Also small employers are generally exempt from contributing to programs that help with employee healthcare or insurance.

zaroth 6y ago

There’s another level of subsidies called cost sharing reductions which bring the deductible/out-of-pocket expenses down as your income is reduced. At 150% FPL the Silver plan deductible falls from about $7,000 to $250, and your maximum annual out-of-pocket expenses falls from $7,300 to $550. At some point you hit full-on Medicaid which is, depending on the state, truly excellent insurance and totally free.

tigershark 6y ago

Almost 4 litres of ice cream per month? Every month? And someone wonders why there are so many type 2 diabetes cases...

ryanwaggoner 6y ago
That’s about 250 calories per day, which is pretty reasonable for a daily treat. And I actually looked it up and it’s about a half gallon per American per month. I wonder if that includes children too. Probably. And then factor in the mountains of other garbage we also eat...it’s honestly a miracle that we’re not more obese than we are.
taurath 6y ago
Forgot how big a regular thing of ice cream was :p
jacobolus 6y ago
1 gallon/month is 1 scoop of ice cream each on 5 or 6 days per week, or on average about 12–15 grams of sugar per day. It’s about the same amount of sugar you’d get from drinking one 12 oz can of soda every third day. If it’s the only sugary treat someone is eating, that’s still well below average for people in most industrialized countries. If combined with soda/candy/cake/cookies/cocktails/... then probably not such a good idea.
r00fus 6y ago
I presume this is for a family of 2-4; in that case it's arguably not much at all.

bhupy 6y ago

High deductible just means that you have to pay upfront for preventive care — like flu shots, bacterial checkups, and annual physicals. We pay out of pocket for tons of things, like food, clothing, and utilities. Insofar as this is undesirable, it's probably because the pricing system is impaired. If you have a financially ruinous healthcare event, the ACA silver plan saves you — that's the whole point of insurance.

brianwawok 6y ago
Annual physicals and flu shots are generally (possible ACA mandate?) free with no deductible. Maybe bad example choices?
- bhupy 6y ago
  That's all the more reason why the higher deductible isn't inherently a bad thing, even most of the basic needs are covered. Outside of that, it's just catastrophic coverage, just like car insurance.
taurath 6y ago
No it doesn’t. If you go in with a cold, they check your temperature and give you some Tylenol you get charged $600 out of your pocket, until you meet the deductible. It’s the preventative care stuff that is /sometimes/ not counting against the deductible. Also literally any surgery is a financially ruinous healthcare event insured or not until you’re rich relative to the average person - I have the receipts of the tens of thousands of dollars of medical bills I’ve had to pay while insured to prove it.

rayiner 6y ago

> An ACA silver plan means you have a $4500 deductible. You will NEVER go to a doctor. Silver plans are eligible for Cost Sharing Reduction (reducing deductibles to $500-1,000), and pay for doctor’s visits before deductibles kick in. And preventative care has no co-pay and no deductible. > So you pay your $500 for rent. Add 150 for utilities. Add 200 for gas and 50 for car insurance since you're gonna be living in a rural place. How much do you think gas costs in Iowa? The median rural/town commuter travels about 1,150 miles per month. A 2000 Honda Civic gets 27 mpg. At $2/gallon for around 40 gallons a month, that’s under half your estimate. > Now you have $600 a month for food and literally any other expense. Say you never eat out and use staples like rice and beans as the basis for every dish, thats $250 a month (maybe you can squeeze out another $50, but one must have a slight bit of slack for say, a single gallon of ice cream per month). You are out of touch if you think $250 per month is a “rice and beans” food budget for a single person: https://mymoneywizard.com/how-i-spend-less-than-35-a-week-on-groceries-my-full-shopping-list-exposed https://mymoneywizard.com/how-i-spend-less-than-35-a-week-on... ($67 per week for two people). A weekly trip to Aldi for my family of five clocks in at about $100, and we don’t even try to save money. > $350 for everything else. Entertainment. A gym membership. Your medical deductible. Your sanity. In central Illinois, you can have a sit-down meal for $10, less if ethnic food. Coffee is a buck. The Y near my house is $40/month for a very nice place with heated indoor pool, and making minimum wage you qualify for financial aid. The county one, which is also nice, is $25/month. Netflix is $13/month. A Verizon MVNO is $35/month. In Iowa City, you can get $1-2 well drinks four days a week: https://www.brothersbar.com/iowacity https://www.brothersbar.com/iowacity.

taurath 6y ago
> Silver plans are eligible for Cost Sharing Reduction (reducing deductibles to $500-1,000), and pay for doctor’s visits before deductibles kick in You’re right about the deductible - after doing the math I saw that youd qualify for the 150->400% bracket of the federal poverty level. But can you afford 3 weeks pay for that $750 deductible? On top of other stuff? > You are out of touch if you think $250 per month is a “rice and beans” food budget for a single person I didn't say it was only rice and beans, but a cheap diet consisting of the cheapest carbs. The USDA has it around $180 as the absolute cheapest per person. Your money wizard person lives in the cheapest area of the country. I'll bet they have a stocked kitchen as well so they never need to buy spices. https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/media/file/CostofFoodMay2020.pdf https://fns-prod.azureedge.net/sites/default/files/media/fil... > In central Illinois Having been thru Normal/Bloomington and Champaign, it’s extremely reasonable in price as rentals are dirt cheap, as long as you’re going to aldi. $1-2 well drinks aren’t a thing in a lot of the country. Coffee isn’t a dollar since the 90s. Your original example was between DC and baltimore. Things aren't so cheap there. Oh, and I forgot about the actual premium cost of the silver plan, which is around $200 per month. Sorry, but you're going into debt or homelessness the second your hours get cut. You have no stability. The smallest thing going wrong will ruin you. Have you seen the absolute hordes of people going into just APPLY for section 8? https://youtu.be/Q5ocjZ9GatA?t=140 https://youtu.be/Q5ocjZ9GatA?t=140