Some nights, when Jon Gault felt his worst, he wondered if he would live long enough to see his 17-year-old son go to college or to walk his daughter, now 8, down the aisle. So when the Seattle resident signed up for Washington’s state-run Obamacare exchange in October, he was jubilant.
Last year, when James Seal left his job as an insulator at shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls Industries in Pascagoula, Miss., he said goodbye to his Blue Cross Blue Shield plan. Since then, he and his wife have paid cash for medical care or visited the hospital emergency room. But mostly, they’ve gritted their teeth through health challenges. It is a strategy that has worked for the most part.
