Sarah Monroe once had a relatively comfortable middle-class life.
She and her family lived in a neatly landscaped neighborhood near Cleveland. They had a six-figure income and health insurance. Then, four years ago, when Monroe was pregnant with twin girls, something started to feel off.
“I kept having to come into the emergency room for fainting and other symptoms,” recalled Monroe, 43, who works for an insurance company.
The babies were fine. But after months of tests and hospital trips, Monroe was diagnosed with a potentially dangerous heart condition.
It would be costly. Within a year, as she juggled a serious illness and a pair of newborns, Monroe was buried under more than $13,000 in medical debt.
Part of the reason: Like tens of millions of Americans, she had a high-deductible health plan. People with these plans typically pay thousands of dollars out of their own pockets before coverage kicks in.
The plans, which have become common over the past two decades, are getting renewed attention thanks to President Donald Trump and his GOP allies in Congress.
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Many Republicans are reluctant to extend government subsidies that help cover patients’ medical bills and insurance premiums through the Affordable Care Act.
And although GOP leaders have yet to coalesce around an alternative, several leading Republican lawmakers have said Americans who don’t get insurance through an employer should get cash in a special health care account, paired with a high-deductible health plan. In such an arrangement, so …