YES...reducing income and surviving is difficult, but, I believe, like you, many others will see this ruling as an incentive to “Go Galt”
For me it means that once the pre-existing condition part goes into effect I will stop my health insurance.
I’ll happily pay the paultry penalty to save hundreds every month. I’ll just get insurance on my way to the hospital if anything bad happens.
This was the rule in Washington state for a while back in the late 90’s. I worked at Blue Cross at the time. It was a joke. Couples would get pregnant, buy our health insurance to cover them through the pregnancy, and then cancel it after the baby was born.
It was not workable in the long run and cost us a fortune. Fortunately it was only temporary.
Oh, and a LOT of health insurance companies left the state.