this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2026
458 points (99.4% liked)

News

34054 readers
4614 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] hdsrob@lemmy.world 31 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I've been either self employed, or worked for a very small company for 25+ years, and never had reasonable access to insurance.

With the covid era subsidies, we finally had insurance for the first time for the last few years.

Between the policy doubling in price, and the loss of subsidies we would have been paying way almost $2000 a month, so now we don't have insurance again.

[–] titanicx@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I'm self employed. I haven't had health care in nearly 7 years. It's idiotic for me to pay 700$ a month for something I rarely if ever need. It would be nice to have for the occasional use, but it's far cheaper to pay cash then bother with the scam.

Ironically, insurance companies are shooting themselves in the foot by alienating people like you. If they had a reasonable cost option, healthy folks would be more likely to go, "Eh, it's worth having the coverage just in case." But when they make it this absurd, they're limiting their customers to those more likely to depend on insurance, i.e. those most likely to file expensive claims and/or hit their deductible.

But hey, that's the kind of thing that happens when you can't see beyond short-term profits. Late stage capitalism at its finest.

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There is also the misconception that the penalty still exists.

[–] Texas_Hangover@lemmy.radio 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] titanicx@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There is a penalty for a good minute that if you didn't have health insurance when you filed your taxes they apply to penalty towards your taxes because you weren't paying your fair share of everyone else's health issues.

[–] innermachine@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Well in some states that's still a thing. In RI which I just left that God forsaken shit hole 2 years ago if you don't have health insurance coverage for the whole year you pay 800$ or 2% of what you made that year, whichever is GREATER.

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Damn that's like almost 3% of your income if you make near minimum wage.

[–] innermachine@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Yep! RI is one of those states that there ain't a shot in hell ur gonna survive on min wage anyways. Cheapest apts are 1800+, if ur on minimum wage and still want to eat on a 40 hour week you have multiple room mates. I still have friends in mass that are paying 2/3rds or more of my mortgage for a ROOM. So glad I left there, not that shits all that much better in other states but at least I'm building equity now 🤷

[–] innermachine@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

It's honestly starting to look like your better off without insurance. When the hospital kicks you the bill, pay 20 a month max so they can't kick it to collections and ruin hr credit and just do 5-20 a month untill you croak. Fuck em theyll never get paid in full this way but u don't have to financially ruin yourself in the process.