In 2009, before ACA passage, average employer-sponsored family premiums were $13,375 per KFF surveys. By 2024, they reached $25,572, nearly doubling despite ACA mandates. Average single deductibles climbed from around $600 to $1,788, with family deductibles now exceeding $4,000 in many plans. Pre-ACA out-of-pocket maximums often lacked caps or exceeded $10,000 for families; today, ACA limits them to ~$18,000 max but averages hover at $7,000-$9,000, fueling higher effective costs.
…there is no linear blueprint for grief. One day you’re collapsed on the floor crying out the name Jesus in between labored breaths. The next you’re playing with your children in the living room, surrounded by family photos, and feeling a rush of something you can only attempt to define as divinely planted and bittersweet joy as a smile breaks through on your face.
They say time heals. But love doesn’t ask to be healed. Love asks to be remembered. It’s humbling to realize that this magnitude of suffering didn’t steal my love for my husband. It amplified it. It crystallized it.
I carry my Charlie in every breath, in every ache, and in every quiet act of day to day living as I attempt to relearn what that rhythm will be.
And what I’ve realized through these past 30 days is the greater the suffering, the purer the love. And I have never loved him more than I do now.
Told my wife we make too much to get the stimulus this time so now she gets to humble brag to her friends about how rich we are and I get $2800 to bet on basketball. Everybody wins.
the best thing to happen to me in baseball was getting yelled at for not running out a pop fly... i could talk a lot about Bouska, but being able to appreciate and take advantage of the small things in life made me more of an appreciative person in the long run. good luck Coach!
in an attempt to make your quarantine NOT suck, I’m doing a $10,000 giveaway! randomly selecting 10 people to donate $1,000, just RETWEET this for a chance to win💰