Originally Posted by
biminiblue 
I call shenanigans.
I've never taken a job that didn't offer insurance and I've never been without insurance. I mean, that's just being an adult. If he works for someone who purposely keeps him part-time (by four hours) so as to deny him insurance he needs a different employer, and there are plenty out there.
I still say his story smells like fish.
I just want to gently push back on this please. I am *not* defending his choices in regards to his drinking. He absolutely cannot afford marketplace insurance because he drinks his money away. That is totally on him.
However he is highly trained in his industry, and this type of practice is fairly normal in his line of work. In his industry 30 hours is actually considered 'full time' due to the repeated physical strain on his body, and the fact that he is pushing 36 hours a week due to financial strain is already taxing his body physically. (And yes, that financial strain is his own fault). This is not a story he has spun for me. I have made friends with his ex-coworkers - independent of him - and all of them work similar hours and do not have insurance through work (most have it through partners if at all). This particular situation is not due to anything he has done, just a fact of his field of work. No job in his industry will allow him to gain health insurance. That is simple fact. He is *not* at fault for that. He *is* at fault that he does not have access to insurance outside of work due to drinking.
My focus on insurance in my original posts is simply that he cannot access the therapies he needs due to the lack of insurance in the USA and I can help him access that in Australia.