Net? What is this Safety Net you speak of? Is that the magical thing where you have a nest egg in the bank in case something bad happens?
I had one once. Then I got married, moved out, and tried to be a responsible adult instead of a happy teenager living at home not causing trouble. All my nest egg went to bills and ridiculous $300 down payments at utility companies (and a few medical incidents), and my credit was ruined because my name was put down as primary on a few utility bills, and utility bills check your credit. And I moved seven times in two years shorty after I got married since we were chasing jobs from one end of the state to the other trying to keep ourselves fed because the job market SUCKS MONKEY BUTT HARD these days. How come they can ruin your credit but they can't build it back after you've kept your bill paid the whole time? Talk about a double standard!
It's the tax that's only a tax when it's convenient to be a tax. Otherwise, it's a "penalty" (read: threat, intimidation). Ol' CJ Johnny Bobs needs to look up "coercion" in the dictionary. Our forefathers are spinning in their graves.
It's actually called the "shared responsibility payment" since it came from the Individual Shared Responsibility provision. I find that more insulting than "penalty" since they're not even being honest about what it is.
I have heard the newly elected were at first going to try to work with and keep this monstrosity, but last I heard they're going to be working to repeal the whole thing. Whether or not they will try and whether they'll be successful, I don't know. There is a loooot of empty talk in politics just to get a vote. But it's comforting to think not everybody in Washington is skipping down the halls and patting themselves on the back at having this passed.
Blehhhh, my turn to fuss! So I went checking to see about Marketplace health insurance. I would be paying a minimum of $350 for me and my husband, and the only deductible we could afford was $12,000. (I should also note that because we're below the poverty line, we do NOT get a tax credit. If we made just above the poverty level, we'd pay nothing for each of us with an $12,700 deductible. How's that for screwed up?) Of course they'd pay everything after the deductible was met, but we'd never meet it, even with my husband being diabetic! Say we continue going to the only affordable clinic we know of, and they no longer help us get insulin for free now that he has insurance. We'd be buying his insulin on our own, on top of the clinic fees we already pay. Which is a good deal, $40 for a check-up and A1C blood test is pretty good. But that might bump up to standard since we have insurance and be $150+ per visit. But assume it doesn't jump, between health insurance and his cost alone we'd be paying $11,000
just in health stuff, and that's not counting me being blind as a bat and my own issues! And naturally, no bloody health insurance covers vision. I can't afford $11,000! I'd have to pick up two more jobs on top of the two I've got!
What's the point of having insurance if it doesn't pay anything you need it to!? I hate deductibles. Hate, hate, hate them! The one time we had insurance was a few years back through his employer, and it was a whopping $95 per week ($400+/month). We only tried to use it once, for a little $25-$50 incident from the factory not providing good work conditions, and they refused to pay. We payed more than enough for them to cover it and they were supposed to cover work-related problems regardless! So we dropped them and haven't had insurance since. We can't afford that garbage.
I get all riled up over politics. 
