[THEFERMANATOR]

I feel your pain. We don't pay nowhere near what you are, but it is sad that health insurance is also our biggest out of pocket expense, and has just about put us in the poor house. My wife is a teacher, and it used to be you became a teacher for the benefits, well not no more. She is now paying $60 a month(I know not much, but her pay is very low because she is supposed to get benefits to offset it and bring it up to what other public teachers make), we pay $380 a month for mine through the exchange(Hated doing it, but had to so we could afford groceries), and our son is through the state. Before ocare we could all have PREMIUM insurance through her work that covered EVERYTHING for under $250 a month, now there crappy coverage(that meets ocare guidelines) is $800 a month for a family. We spend more on insurance than anything else in this world if you really think about it. Health, dental, vision, life, burial, auto, gap, homeowners, finance, mortgage, and so on. It is scary to think of what some people really pay out in insurance every month. We don't have that many coverages, and we spend close to half of our income on insurance alone every year. We don't make much, but we barely skim by. You shouldn't have to make a $100K a year to live a decent life, but anymore it looks that way.

I remember as a kid our family didn't make but about $40K a year, and we lived a very nice life, and weren't wanting for much. But today $40K a year is barely living above poverty if you live by the rules.