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Comment by tomca32 | Hacker News Reader

I wish this was true but it isn’t. The main reason I cannot do this is because health insurance is prohibitively expensive. The main reason I have to continue working is because I’m a T1 diabetic and I need to have health coverage.

Although, even without diabetes I still would want to have health coverage.

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The claim that one is unable to afford health insurance with a salary between $30k and $60k is... Factually incorrect. Do you mean that the medication for T1 diabetes is unaffordable at that salary range even with health insurance?

I agree with you, and to give some numbers as examples for other readers to respond to, I've seen good individual health insurance in the $500-1200 range, and there may be tax advantages associated with paying it. That's not a huge amount per year if you are getting the $30-60k hypothesized interest income.

You're right. After doing some research I could actually pull it off, but it would be pretty tight.

There's some decent insurance options for ~$700/mo. That's still $8400/yr. With $60k/yr income, that might still be doable but I don't think it's realistic on a $30k budget.

I suppose the parent poster's response could be, with $2M you could consider that $30,000 per year plus health insurance.

Or, at $1M you could have $30,000 per year to subsidize working in some job that provides health insurance but otherwise is something you enjoy. Being willing to work for $30k less than anyone else, for example, would probably give you ways to convince the hiring managers to let you do things your way most of the time.

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