Affordable Care
I recently quit my six figure salary job at a startup here in Minnesota to start my own startup. Just before I quit I was looking at around $650&#x2F;month premiums for my family of four as the absolute cheapest plan with the highest deductible. Right after I quit, the two largest health insurance providers in MN pulled out of our MNSure health insurance exchange, causing premiums to spike up across the board. Now I am faced with a $1200&#x2F;month premium which is more than I&#x27;d pay for my former employer&#x27;s health plan through COBRA. Having to cover such a high premium expense is significantly impacting my ability to start my company.<p>So perhaps Sam is happy about all the ways in which the ACA has helped much younger entrepreneurs get off the ground with their companies, but a significant portion of the population is being impacted in a very negative way. Maybe he believes that only young people should be starting startups in the first place, but we know that&#x27;s an absurd proposition. Even if I was under 26 I wouldn&#x27;t have been able to rely on my parents for health insurance because they were unemployed. The only way I can make this all work is to claim a low enough income to qualify for medical assistance which is going to be hard to work out because of my monthly expenses.<p>What I really wish I could do is pay for a very low premium &quot;catastrophe&quot; plan with an absurdly high deductible like $50k, because my family is very healthy and I have enough in retirement savings (IRA, HSA, 401K, etc) to cover it should something severe happen. In other words, I wish I could just buy health insurance that was like my car insurance. But I&#x27;m being forced to pay for a plan with far more bells and whistles than my family will ever use or frankly even wants to use.