Free Republic

Millions of Americans fall into the 'coverage gap' where they do not get Medicaid, but are too poor to qualify for federal subsidies on the new insurance exchanges.

IN 2005, the least-affordable place in the country to live, measured by the percentage of income devoted to mortgage payments, was Salinas, Calif. The second was the Santa Cruz-Watsonville area of California. The third? Santa Rosa-Petaluma, Calif. In fact, California has the distinction of having the 11 least-affordable metropolitan areas in the country. One would need to go all the way down to 12th place — and across the country to the New York region's northern suburbs — to find a non-California metropolitan area on the least-affordable list of 2005. Much of California is pretty. It has beaches and the...