At $12K a year you were at the poverty line, silver cost sharing reduction and you have something like $1K-1.5K max copays and deductibles. You might have not known about it and tried to buy a bronze plan instead, but the silver cost sharing reduction removes almost all of the deductible and the premium credits at the low end bring the premiums to near zero.

Most of Obamacare brings max medical expenses to about 10% of income for a single person but there are a few sudden bumps like when you make too much for the cost sharing reduction, or when you fall below poverty line but your state didn't expand Medicaid even though federal government was going to pay 90% and those states probably come close to losing more just from subsidizing emergency care for people in the gap than the would have paid to expa d before the latest tax bill locked them in to never being able to expand.

> You might have not known about it and tried to buy a bronze plan instead,

I always looked at every plan there was. Most of the work was getting thru the qualifications. After all that, every plan got examined multiple times.

> Most of Obamacare brings max medical expenses to about 10% of income for a single person

During the 2010s my wife and each brought in ~$10k/yr. That was in line with most folks we knew, in the $10k-$35k range. A typical month made 80% of minimal bills.

In searching for policies in the $12/yr range there might have been 'catastrophic' policies that were just most of my income instead of all of it.

I want thru the qualification 2x more for $24k and $32k. The latter being the cheapest polices I saw all that day. I took a few screenshots back then. I'm searching my archives and if I find them I'll post back.