i was recently laid off and don’t have insurance. i know the deductibles will be outrageous and the quality of care in general will be diminished. that is the natural course of socialized medicine, at a time when i have zero disposable income. oh, btw... jobs, or at least gainful employment, i have noticed are harder to come by. not surprising, eh?
Obamacare does away with asset tests for Medicaid, so you would have gotten free medical coverage courtesy of the Federal budget (and eventually, your fellow taxpayers, as well as your own past contributions). However, Texas has chosen not expand Medicaid, so you’re not covered. There’s always AR or NM, though, which have expanded Medicaid. Still, Houston and San Antonio are boomtowns because of shale oil and gas, so maybe that’s the way to go.
Here’s the Obamacare Medicaid expansion map, if you’re interested:
http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2013/09/health/map-obamacare/
http://www.familiesusa.org/resources/tools-for-advocates/guides/federal-poverty-guidelines.html
The way the Medicaid expansion works is that adults with income amounting to less than 138% of the poverty threshold are eligible for Medicaid without an asset test (i.e. you don’t have to sell your car, your house, etc or draw down your bank balances).
If you decide to work at a retail job or at a fast food chain for minimum wage as a stopgap measure, and you make more than the 138% of poverty threshold, you can benefit from Obamacare even in states that don’t do the Medicaid expansion. For instance, someone who works two retail jobs and makes $16K a year will get insurance coverage for $45 a month. The true cost of the coverage is $7330 per year, but the federal budget pays for $6791 of that amount.
As with the Medicaid expansion, there is no asset test to be eligible for Obamacare, meaning you don’t have to sell or draw down any assets to qualify.