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Comment by zuppy | Hacker News Reader

what about the poor people? the ones that can't really afford insurance. i've heard multiple times that epipen prices are crazy expensive and that's a really basic drug.

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If you’re really poor, you can get Medicaid. It’s the working poor who earn too much for Medicaid who are really shafted. The ACA tried to fix that for as many as it could, by expanding Medicaid to households making more money; the Republicans shut down the government to fight that expansion. It’s maddening.

Gov shutdown wasn’t about medicaid expansion, which is done at the state level. It was about expanding ACA subsidies to those making more than 400% of the federal poverty level.

I got my last Epi-Pen for free, since in my state Medicaid has no copay for prescriptions or else it's $2 or $3.

If you're really poor you end up going to the emergency room and get a $20k bill that you never end up paying

If you're poor you just wait until you're borderline dying and then go to the E.R. and get charged $120,000 and then never pay it and then have debt collectors calling you for the rest of your life.

Or you're on Medicaid if you live in a sane state.

Medicaid is available in all 50 states.

It is not available to all poor people in all states

https://www.cbpp.org/research/health/the-medicaid-coverage-g...

All the non-expansion states make it available too; just at a lower income threshold or other requirements.

Making a statement that most poor people in America can’t get epi-pens is false. Most poor people can for free.

> Making a statement that most poor people in America can’t get epi-pens is false. Most poor people can for free.

There are 26 million uninsured in the US and deductibles also exist for everyone so this is just blatantly false

I guess it depends on how you define “poor” and “uninsured”. Considering most of America offers Medicaid expansion or ACA plans, being uninsured is basically a choice.

Im sure the 4 million uninsured kids could’ve sold lemonade on the weekends or something

There's undoubtedly a significantly lower cash price if you don't have insurance (GP mentions $225). The before insurance prices are meaningless; they're a negotiating tactic between pharma companies and insurers.

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