Goldfinch, you bring up good points. My sister and her boys get screwed by the system. Her youngest is autistic. If she earns above the poverty line she loses her son's therapy. Because she ends up unable to work a decent paying, full-time job she lives without health insurance. Her boys' health care is covered, but if she were to get sick or injured it would be financially devastating.

She is engaged to a long-time boyfriend...the only father her boys have really ever known. Now if the 2 of them earn too much they all suffer. Neither she or her husband-to-be can make too much, otherwise her son loses the therapy. Her future husband will also not have health care covered.