There's a whole separate discussion to be had about what taxes should pay for, but I don't think it's abusing the system. I think there's no question the bartender would work full time at a job that paid enough to pay for all of the living expenses and the healthcare, but that's not one of her options. Her options, according to the anecdote, were to work X hours for X money, or to work X + Y hours for X money.
All 3 of my kids are on it. My salary is just under the limit for a household of 5.
I would love to make more money, but it would have to be a raise of about 20% to cover the difference in premium for my kids to be on my private insurance plan. I'm thankful for the program. Without it, I was forking over 20% of my salary to the health insurance company. It seems stupid to allow myself to fall in that margin, no?
15 years ago, we just did without health coverage, but we were young and healthy. Not everyone is as blessed.
1) Don't take the pay rise (career stagnation)
2) Keep health care and advance her career (abusing the system, technically, yes)
3) Keep both jobs and advance her career (lose health care)
You don't need to be an expert on game theory to realise what the best decision to make in this situation is. I agree with you in principle that it shouldn't be right to do this, but the system is, well.. shit. What else could she have done?
Plug in some numbers for yourself with this Obamacare calculator. If you are, for example, a married couple, both 55 years old, you lose many of thousands of dollars of benefits from an additional $1 of income when your income crosses 400% of the poverty line.
To put some real numbers on the table: if this couple made $65800 of income, they get a $1098 per month subsidy. If they made $65900 of income, they get a $0 subsidy.
Any solution to this has to be cooperative between federal/state/local authorities, but given that welfare programs are one of the most politically charged topics in the US, there's little chance that this cooperation will happen.
There was no choice. She couldn't afford to pay for healthcare with the new job. What would you have done?
She's choosing to get healthcare, a reasonable choice, 100% legally. The other poster made it clear she could not afford the jump from medicare to the open market.
If you're worried about the policies I suggest you take a closer look as to who wants to limit how those systems work... time and again it's NOT people pushing "socialist policies".
I have trouble throwing down questions of ethics on someone who wants to be healthy and live.