How do you afford your rock-n-roll lifestyle?

[wordplay]

M and I (and many other DC area residents, I imagine) have spent part of the morning talking about this article in this morning's Washington Post.

The mind boggles. The average household income in the US is around $46k. And the average household income in our county is just over $82k. Will someone please explain to me, then, how it is that we can't break into the housing market here for under $500k, and really need to go past $600k for something our family of four can live in longterm? What kind of insane financing deals must people be getting themselves into? And what ARE the guidelines for financing property right now? My personal comfort zone was that I never wanted to buy a house that was more than twice our annual income, but I'm starting to think that was way, way too conservative. Is there a ballpark for this?

And look at the numbers of people without health insurance - it's disgusting. I've spent all year bitching to anybody who would listen about how our health insurance over the last year (COBRA coverage, since M. is self-employed - best part of me going to work for the state is that we don't have to carry our own insurance anymore, yay!) ran us over $1100 per month. That's over $13k per year, or almost 30% of that $46k that the average American household is bringing in. Absolutely absurd, and well past shameful.

Aren't we all so glad that this administration wants to repeal the estate tax? What a difference that will make to most American households! < /sarcasm>

Comments

[chinawolf.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to barge in like this, but there is one thing I don't understand about the health insurance problem in the US: why are you not insured? Here (=Germany), if you do not qualify for normal health insurance, which I guess would be the equivalent of being insured via your work [but actually the only reason you don't qualify for it is if you earn too much money], you can buy private health insurance. It is insanely expensive, of course, the student rate about six times as much as the normal insurance and comparable to what I pay for a one-room appartment as rent, but it will probably come to a zero if you have to see a doctor more than three or four times a year; plus, you get better medicine/care when you're privately insured.

Is it not *possible* to insure yourself privately in the US? Or is it a matter of not wanting/being able to pay a couple hundred dollars per month for private insurance?