76-Year-Old Uber Driver Pays Insurance Premium for Ghost Coverage

Photo by Possessed Photography on Unsplash

KEY POINTS

•Jeff Mason drove for Uber in New Jersey while rebuilding finances after paying $300,000 in medical bills for his wife’s cancer treatment.
•Before the Affordable Care Act, they paid COBRA premiums but were denied coverage due to his wife’s pre-existing condition.
•To survive financial ruin, they liquidated savings, remortgaged their house, and Jeff returned to work in his 70s.

Jeff Mason, age 76 and New Jersey’s most resilient Uber driver, started hustling at age 10 mowing lawns for 25 cents. After decades swinging heavy equipment for bridge-building and warehouses, his wife Karen's gallbladder saga morphed into a $300,000 cancer crisis pre-ACA (Affordable Care Act). Despite shelling out COBRA and premiums as part of a phantom 1/300 share of an insurance pool that apparently only exists in their dreams, hospitals told them: 'You’re not covered; good luck!' Lawyers shrugged—no fraud means no courtroom drama. They remortgaged, cashed IRAs, sold cars, and still paid bills for 13 years, living Spartan lives so strict, Karen cried only when bill collectors dialed. Retirement briefly offered them $300K and US road trips before prostate cancer and heart surgeries nudged Jeff back into the gig economy. Being told to divorce to qualify for welfare insurance was the plot twist no one asked for.