Obamacare: ‘I Don’t Know How They Expect a Guy to Live’

The $1,700 a month that Trent Caldwell (not his real name) and his wife are paying for health insurance is already a stretch.

The self-employed home contractor and high school athletic coach from Lakeville, Minnesota, has happily worked upwards of 60 hours a week — and has most of his career — to ensure he can meet the needs of his family of eight. Making a combined $97,000 a year, he and his wife, a personal care assistant, do not qualify for assisted health care coverage through MNsure, Minnesota’s health insurance marketplace under Obamacare.

The $3,300-a-month health insurance premium they recently received notice for is not something the family can afford.

But the couple just made a decision they never dreamed of making: They will be going without health insurance in 2017 — and instead paying the Obamacare penalty. The $3,300-a-month health insurance premium they recently received notice for is simply not something the family can afford.

After this year, Caldwell said the family will pay cash for the care they absolutely do need and pray that none of them get seriously sick or injured.

“I know I have a responsibility to my children and my wife. I’m not off my rocker, I’m very reasonable — and it’s sad to say you consider this a reasonable decision,” Caldwell told LifeZette.

A good friend of Caldwell’s, Tim Poehling, also of Lakeville, is the one who felt the family’s story needed to be shared.

Related: 8 Ways Obama Bends the Truth About Obamacare

“He’s an example of a guy trying to do the right thing,” Poehling said. “He makes just under $100,000 a year, he’s probably got $25,000 going to the government for taxes, so he’s down to $75,000. And now — to not break the law — he’ll have to spend another $38,000 to $40,000 for health care. And he’s supposed to raise his family for $35,000? It’s a joke. People are starting to understand that, wow, this is not what it was meant to be. It’s a complete lack of common sense driving the politics around this whole thing.”

Poehling recently shared that his own family’s rates are jumping 59 percent.

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“Health care is going to get a lot more expensive with a lot fewer options,” said Poehling. “People were basically tricked into the whole situation. Who it’s really going to hurt is the middle class. [Hillary] loves that this is happening — the Dems knew this was going to happen and this is a progression on them taking over health care.”

This election offers voters a clear choice — between continuing with the failed Affordable Care Act, and or repealing it. Hillary Clinton has vowed to “fix what’s wrong” with Obamacare and expand the program; Trump promises a strong replacement for the increasingly unaffordable, illegally funded insurance mandate.

“I don’t know how they expect a guy to live,” said Caldwell. “I’ve never received a dollar from unemployment or workers compensation in my life. How do I pay my car insurance, my car payment, my house payment, my utilities, my food? It doesn’t work. There’s nothing left to do those things. So you make a decision on life stopping so that you can have health insurance or you roll the dice and try to provide the best you can. And that’s basically the situation we’re in.”

Related: Obamacare’s $11 Billion Vanishing Act

Caldwell and Poehling say they’re talking with more and more of their family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors who are facing similar situations.

“Everyone should get health care. Most people believe that — I believe that. But getting health care is different from getting health insurance. Everyone is talking about health care going up and yes, here’s a real, live example. You should be upset about it,” said Poehling.

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Caldwell added, “I’m not the only one I’ve talked to that is like, ‘Do I want my kid to have to give up sports or everything in life? Do I never want to take a vacation?’ Is that the American dream for a guy who works 60 hours a week and whose wife works? You’re forced into a situation where you have to make hard decisions — and you can’t even think this time would come that you’d decide to not have health insurance for your children.”