she is in her late 40s, has been in a field that involves freelance work most of her corporate life, and has to support the insurance needs of her husband as well. She has thyroid cancer which, like some other cancers, sort of pops up as a big awful surprise.

She has needed to visit doctors most of her adult life for related problems but the cancer was not something she expected.

I happen to know that generally, when you are single and you have no job in MA, you can get an ok health plan for maybe $400/mo. Things also depend on where you live, but when you have no job or money, that's a huge chunk of change. When you have a partner, that's more like $800-900 from most things I have seen of any quality, and so if you do regular check ups, have any medical needs, or want some sense of added security, you would have to chose this sort of expense in order to survive. If you had a COBRA plan from some former full time job, then yeah, you could pay just under $300 for yourself, but hey, if you are NOT working, you have no money so it is just plain hard!

If you are in or come from the graphic arts, web, print, Macintosh, design and production world of work, your life normally IS all about "freelance" and short term jobs. There's often little you can do about this unless you get lucky or start your own business, and so whether you like it or not, your resume sort of "pigeon holes" you in such a way that you are forced to get more jobs of this same nature! Clients see "freelanced here and there" for the past 5 years, and they make you do the exact same thing in your next job!

And then, even if a client does hire you as a production manager or something higher up than just some Mac guru who can build marketing materials on the fly who can make the money this gal is currently making, you still went from nothing to something, and so you are still paying last year's expenses. She was only there for 4 months when she had to go to hospital...

Plus, many companies are not even hiring their own managers in this feild as "full timer" personnel who receive the std. benefits and health plans because of budgetary and overhead concerns in corporate.

All this makes for a rather volitile situation for most working people of the lower middle classes. The creative and marketing fields are like this. Costs are high, and so you have to pay.

So what am I missing?

oh, and try telling someone in the above scenario to try to "save" $1000 to use for something later. Not easy to do man.

Similarly, if you freelance, good luck trying to buy a house! Mortgage companies would rather you make $30k a year full time than 70k a year as a freelancer! It's alllllllllllllllll perception on the ends of the people who offer the products and services we need. Insurance and homes.

the rest is just luck & timing. I sympathize with this person.
MM


and oh, does THIS above person have ANY time to think about miles?
Hardly.
If she has any, she has no time to figure out how to deal with them. Would you?