Readit NewsCOBRA isn’t meant to be a full healthcare insurance, it’s meant to be a “bridge” care for people in between jobs (that’s why it’s tied to your prior employers plans). You also don’t even need to pay the COBRA premiums unless you actually use it, so you can save that $1K/mo while being implicitly insured (helpful in case you only really want to be insured against catastrophic accidents).
If you were not working because you were caring for a dependent (like a sick adult), or if you’re a minimum wage worker, you wouldn’t use an employer sponsored plan through COBRA, you’d use Medi-Cal (California’s expanded Medicaid) or the ACA marketplace, and could be “free” or ultra low (premiums). Medi-Cal is free, and the ACA plan for a 45yo male in SF making Cali minimum wage (34k/yr) would pay $18/mo.
Healthcare is absolutely a “pretty big deal” and absolutely the system is terrible. But if you actually made 34k/yr, it probably makes sense to spend 1hr googling for the actual programs that exist so you’d discover that you can get it for much cheaper.
Of course, the issue is not the actual availability of insurance, it is that there is a patchwork of laws and protections and it’s not universal to be covered at any point in your life. But many states have well above a 90% insurance rate. California, the most populous state, has 93%. Massachusetts is sitting at 98%. Even Texas, the worst state for health insurance, is at 85% of the population covered.