Obamacare's coverage gap: The poor caught in between

cnn ^ | 10/3/2013 | Dr. Sanjay Gupta

[tobyhill]

I met a woman named Yvonne in Greenville, South Carolina, where the CNN Express was reporting on the rollout of Obamacare. Yvonne had a big smile and was very excited -- you couldn't miss her.

I first noticed her standing in line, waiting patiently to ask a few questions about health care. Most of the questions I had been asked up until that time revolved around the logistics of signing up, whether they could pick a particular doctor and how much all this was going to cost.

Yvonne, who didn't give her last name, started by telling me that she had been able to get off Medicaid in the past year. Before that, she had been living in her car, intermittently staying with friends. Now she has a place to live, and she's excited about the prospect of finally being able to get private health care insurance for the first time in her life.

Yvonne, 35, told me she works part-time as a hairstylist assistant. She said she makes $9 an hour, which at 20 hours a week works out to about $9,360 a year. She is still impoverished, but considers herself lucky because she's never had a major illness.

[Verginius Rufus]

I have to pay sales tax and gasoline taxes, but my employer takes money out of my paycheck to send to the government so I don’t have to send the federal government any money.

[McGavin999]

So then the government gets it’s money from you as well ss from me. When you said China I assumed you don’t pay taxes.

[Verginius Rufus]

I said China because I figure that Obama doesn’t worry about whether the country can afford his schemes—he just thinks there will always be money to be obtained from China or other overseas sources. Of course he also wants to take money from some Americans and redistribute it to his supporters.