I would add a couple caveats on your points about sick time and insurance. It’s become more common for states to pass laws requiring sick time, but their are still now federal job protections for long term illness, with FMLA if you’re out for a long term illness, but that only protects you from losing your job for 12 weeks without pay while you deal with illness (unless you’re carrying a short-/long-term disability insurance, or your company has a policy providing pay otherwise), and also has carve outs for businesses, and your job can also ignore it if the company has employed less than 50 people in the current or previous calendar years, or you’ve worked less than 1,250 hours in the current calendar year at that job.
Also, results will vary on how good that insurance is. At a salary of $48,000/year, you’re getting a plan with a $5,000 deductible and a $20,000 out-of-pocket max. For folks from civilized nations, this means that you need to pay $5,000 a year in medical expenses before your benefits even kick in, and then an additional $15,000 need to be forked out before the insurance actually takes over and covers further care at 100%, provided it’s deemed medically necessary and approved. Note also, you’ll have a separate, higher deductible for out-of-network doctors, and you could still well be on your own after hitting your annual out of pocket max if they decide your doctor is wrong that you need a treatment, the only doctor/practice providing the service you need near you is out of network, or for any number of other reasons. And this is all on top of paying your premiums towards the plan from every paycheck.
I would add a couple caveats on your points about sick time and insurance. It’s become more common for states to pass laws requiring sick time, but their are still now federal job protections for long term illness, with FMLA if you’re out for a long term illness, but that only protects you from losing your job for 12 weeks without pay while you deal with illness (unless you’re carrying a short-/long-term disability insurance, or your company has a policy providing pay otherwise), and also has carve outs for businesses, and your job can also ignore it if the company has employed less than 50 people in the current or previous calendar years, or you’ve worked less than 1,250 hours in the current calendar year at that job.
Also, results will vary on how good that insurance is. At a salary of $48,000/year, you’re getting a plan with a $5,000 deductible and a $20,000 out-of-pocket max. For folks from civilized nations, this means that you need to pay $5,000 a year in medical expenses before your benefits even kick in, and then an additional $15,000 need to be forked out before the insurance actually takes over and covers further care at 100%, provided it’s deemed medically necessary and approved. Note also, you’ll have a separate, higher deductible for out-of-network doctors, and you could still well be on your own after hitting your annual out of pocket max if they decide your doctor is wrong that you need a treatment, the only doctor/practice providing the service you need near you is out of network, or for any number of other reasons. And this is all on top of paying your premiums towards the plan from every paycheck.
being sick is expensive, you shouldn’t do it