[wwweston]

> You know you can buy health insurance, right?

Assuming we're talking about the US market, this is currently true-ish with some caveats, the biggest of which is that there's a major political party currently holding all the power at the federal level working hard to take us back to a time when some people -- even some people with wealth -- could not buy insurance (natural consequence when insurers have every incentive to be selective about who goes in the risk pool), and even some workplace groups faced limiting choices.

[jermaustin1]

My first full time job (in 2006) was with a relatively small company, but with hundreds of full time employees, and thousands of part-timers. I started right before a group policy was to be established, so every full-timer (including myself) was given a medical survey and a doctor was scheduled to come into our main campus for physicals.

Needless to say, we were denied a policy that any of us could afford. The average age at that company was over 50.

Thankfully, being young, I could stay on my parents insurance for one more year before having to get my own personal insurance.

I pretty much had to switch insurance every couple of years to higher and higher deductibles so that my monthly expense didn't grow. This was during the housing debacle, and no jobs and my current salary wasn't getting higher.

I kept my shitty insurance which wasn't ACA compliant until it was illegal to do so, and then I went without paying the fee the first year, then getting insurance through my wife's school the next year.

If the US goes back even 10 years, rates might be lower, but real care is almost non-existent.

I didn't get to have a stomach bug covered without months of fighting back and forth and medical collections calls until the ACA's pre-existing conditions clause went into effect, as I had a lot of stomach issues as a child.