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Honestly, it sounds like during the best of times she spent each and every paycheck in full, and then when hard times fell upon her, she had nothing to fall bac
by jprince 12y ago
Honestly, it sounds like during the best of times she spent each and every paycheck in full, and then when hard times fell upon her, she had nothing to fall back on. This is a common symptom in our consumerist society. An author of her magnitude would have been making enough $ at one point to stow away at least a few years' expenses if she'd just sacrificed a little more during the fat period.
- DavidAdams 12y agoActually, it sounds like she had plenty of money and just ended up being desperate to be covered by health insurance.
- padraic7a 12y agoyeah, breast cancer will probably do that to a person.
- phillmv 12y agoEh, four kids, a breakup, work that was already seasonal in nature, cancer and laid off in a recession tho. Also, authors generally don't rake it in and certainly not at the magnitude of "a few years' expenses". Maybe she could've would've should've but fixed costs are sticky and you don't have to look around very hard to find people who can't absorb that many shocks in such a short period of time.
- zo1 12y agoThen, why not income-protection insurance? That would have solved all her unfortunate-circumstance problems, including the health insurance one. Especially so for someone with some sort of seasonal income. They're the type of individuals who should know better than to not have a reasonable buffer (in case work doesn't come in that season).
- TylerE 12y agoLOL. You think such a social safety net is available in the land of FREEDOM(tm)?
- phillmv 12y agoYou say that as if it were that easy. I hadn't heard of income-protection insurance and after some googling it's no wonder: as far as I can it's a kind of disability insurance - it doesn't kick in if you're merely unemployed. At that point, you're at the mercy of your state's unemployment insurance - which you might not be eligible for if you've been working as a contractor or self employed. Not to mention that seasonal work makes it harder to plan, since you don't have reliable income to plan around. There just aren't that many "no-brainer" options for absorbing this many shocks, at a scale most individuals can cope with.
- phonon 12y agoSee https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8599991 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8599991 Pure private unemployment insurance.
- codezero 12y agoBe honest, do you have a few months' or years' worth of expenses? An X of Y magnitude doesn't make people more savvy with savings/planning.
- TheCoelacanth 12y agoShe had 6 grand lying around to pay for a mere 3 months of health insurance, so it doesn't seem like she was overly short on money. Her problem was that she couldn't keep her health insurance even at that exorbitant price.