Thread by @ashtonpittman

The ACA allowed me to stay on my parents' insurance til 26.

After, private insurance expected me to shell out $500 for insurance with high deductibles & high med costs ($200 for one).

My husband & I got on an ACA plan in 2018 for $70/month, $600 max deductibles, most meds free.

https://twitter.com/brendengallager/status/1371819819687800835

Our income rose in 2019 and 2020, though, so we now pay ~$170/month altogether for both of us on our ACA plan with dental.

Some meds are free, others are $10, $25.

One now costs $90 (the one that would've cost $200 under under private insurance when I had much less income).

Without the ACA, I doubt if I would've been able to even do the kind of work that enabled me to begin moving up the income ladder to begin with, though.

It treats my ADHD, a huge impediment otherwise. But it's also hard for people to do good work if 60% is going to health costs.

I don't really get how people think folks who are constantly pushed to the edge by poverty are supposed to afford hundreds or thousands on health care a month while also moving up the income ladder. I truly don't.

That's never been me. But society expect it of so many others.

And we'll point to the 0.00001% of rags-to-riches stories to tell the other 0.99999% of poor folks that they, too, can have the American dream and be rich if they just try hard enough and work hard enough! And then they work to their grave and their family can't afford a coffin.

What I'm saying is, the "American dream" is a fantasy that is largely used to justify keeping the poorest among us poor and sick and unhealthy and unhappy so that a handful of rich people can keep padding their bank accounts.

But I digress. Back to work now!