It seems to vary a lot state to state, but in Maryland the prices under the Affordable Care Act are not too bad. I just got laid off and the 18 months I can get under COBRA are just enough to get me to Medicare. One thing you might check is any lifetime caps on payouts. That seems to be one item that distinguishes the cheap plans from the good ones.

None of the politicians can really stop this surveillance state. If some politician had the courage to stop it and then some terrorist incident, however minor, were to happen, the opposing party would absolutely crucify him. They all know this. This is why both parties are behaving in the same way. Something really scary happened on 9/11. The politicians promised security in exchange for freedom and people happily agreed. Nothing new there at all. The difference was that this time around, computer technology allowed the creation of a perfect police state. All police states in the past have had a fundamental problem; a society can support only so many secret policemen. Not enough secret policemen to create the perfect police state. With computer technology, that limit is erased. I am afraid this is going to become quite dystopian.