Twenty years ago, when her daughters were young, Tia Long had health insurance.
"We had to," said Long, who has owned Little Sister's jewelry and gift shop for 25 years. "But it got to be way, way, way too much" for her to afford on the income from her little store.
The policy ran her about $250 a month back then, and it had a lot of exclusions, she remembered; for example, it wouldn't cover her thyroid medication or endocrinologist appointments, saying that was treatment for a "pre-existing condition."
"We just ran out of money" and had to drop the coverage, she said.
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