Wait American health insurance costs THAT MUCH? And then you have to pay MORE to use it? I’d been imagining a few hundred dollars p.m. and still thinking “that’s too much”. How is there anyone in your country who believes that public health could cost more than that?
You guys need serious help, I’m so sorry.
I have a medical treatment coming up that I’d thought was rather expensive, but after learning that it costs the same as 2 months of terrible medical cover in the USA I feel a bit better about it…
TIL the French are paying a lot more tax than me (no it’s about the same just distributed differently) - but also their health system is Definitely better than my country, so that tracks. That said, your income there is a little bit higher the average French income is only about 43,000€. Pressing the “median wage” button on that link you provided rounds out to only 280€ per month that go to public health care. What I’ve really learnt from this is that I want to move to France now… If only I could get over having to speak French.
Since demographics matter for insurance cost.
White, male, 30-40yr old married non-smoker.
My insurance monthly is ~350 a month, but I only pay about 80 dollars, and my employer covers the rest.
What do I get for that?
1 eye exam and 1 pair of lenses and 1 frame a year (spending limit on the frame is ~200 IIRC)
1 dental cleaning, 50% coverage on dental procedures, with a maximum benefit of 1500 dollars.
Medical… It’s kinda a crapshoot.
0 dollars for an annual checkup.
25 dollar copay for additional Dr visits.
I wanna say 800 dollar copay on ER visits.
Maximum out of pocket is 5500 a year.
Also, fuck you if you get injured in some states, most other countries, or if you go to any hospital (or even a particular Dr in a hospital) which isn’t “in network” (PS, there is no way for you to find out who is in-network, and keep your sanity).
Don’t even ask me about pharmacy. It’s practically a roulette. One medication may be 100% covered at one location, and 0% at another. Generic may not be covered, even if it is cheaper and more available than the brand name.
American healthcare isn’t particularly fast either. I injured my ankle about 4 years ago. I tried to establish with a Dr to get it checked out (and avoid exorbitant ER/urgent care fees) and the closest appointment was 4 months out.
My partner and I had to get a covid test in 2020. I called my provider and they said it would be 100% covered. My partner caller thier provider, and their response was “we don’t know, get one done and we’ll see what happens”. They received a 300 dollar bill for the test.
The $1300-1800 numbers are the total. The employer pays most of that, and you’re left to pay something around $600.
That fully covers preventative care like regular checkups, standard vaccines, and regular screenings.
If you’re in your regular checkup and there’s an issue, it’s no longer free. Any actual issues usually require you to pay around 20% of the inflated cost. However, you get to use a special, untaxed account to pay it. So you end up paying roughly 15%, and the government chips in 5% (through not charging you income taxes on that portion.)
If you spend somewhere around $10k out of pocket (in addition to your $600/month fees, and your employer’s $900/month fees and the government’s ~$700/month they lose by not taxing any of this), THEN everything is free, as long as it’s approved.
So the real benefit of health insurance is that if you get cancer you only have to pay $~20k a year for as long as you keep your job. Try not to get fired for taking to much time for chemotherapy.
And after you go through all this, there are still complications such as which doctors and pharmacies you’re allowed to go to, but most importantly, the health insurance company has a large say in what medications you’re allowed to take.
If you don’t have health insurance and you get sick you probably just go bankrupt.
Another talking point that doesn’t get discussed enough. I didn’t realize my next job didn’t cover until the next calendar month after the start date and that three week gap was long enough that I’m out of therapy and need to try to reinitiate.
It’s even worse than that. Paying private insurance pays for other peoples’ healthcare and the paychecks of MBAs and C-suite execs on top.
I genuinely don’t understand how some people can’t seem to grasp the business model here. For anyone to get any net value out of insurance, by definition, there has to be at minimum an equivalent number of people who pay in more than they would than if they didn’t have insurance at all.
This doesn’t change whether it’s a government-funded single-payer system or a private corporation. The only thing that significantly changes when it is made a private corporation is it (theoretically) permits it to be nimbler to adapt to change by slicing out all the red tape a government-run entity would have, at the cost of shifting the focus from maximizing benefit to the public to profit-seeking that may incidentally also benefit the public from time to time as an occasional side effect.
Insurance isn’t a magic subscription that pulls money out of thin air to pay for everyone’s whatever as long as one is a member, it fundamentally comes from other people getting short-sticked. That is the whole point. You throw money into the abyss when you’re doing well, in exchange the abyss won’t swallow you whole when you’re not doing well. That’s the contract. If everyone who joined was entitled to more than they paid in, we’d call it a Ponzi scheme.
I’m sure you know all this, just venting a rant to no one in particular…
I’m in Australia. We might be a bit nuts over here but at least we have Medicare. Private health insurance is optional and becoming increasingly expensive, but the public system, although stressed, covers everyone.
We do pay a Medicare levy in our taxes but it’s nothing like USA costs. A few hundred a year I think.
Medicare levy is 2% of income, so you’d pay $1600/year on $80k taxable income.
Insurance in the USA is great if you have a good employer. I pay around $100/month to cover my wife and I, and that includes a $200 deductible (amount you need to pay before the insurance starts covering stuff), $15 doctor visits, $100 for ER, max $15 for generic medication, and a $4k out of pocket maximum per year (after which everything is fully covered). I use a CPAP machine for sleep apnea, and both the machine and supplies are fully covered.
The monthly price plus the deductible is less than what I was paying for the Medicare levy in Australia.
On the other hand, if your employer doesn’t have a good health plan, or you’re unemployed or self-employed, health insurance is way more expensive and the coverage isn’t as great.
The divide between well-off (not necessarily rich, just middle to upper middle class) and poor is significantly larger in the USA than it is in Australia. My parents relied a lot on Australian government assistance when I was young (below market rate government housing, rental assistance to help pay the rent, etc) so I’m very grateful about that.
Honestly I’d be happy to pay more in taxes if it went towards universal healthcare.
we do pay a Medicare levy in our taxes but it’s nothing like USA costs
I was thinking about this too - the American monthly health insurance cost is significantly more than my entire monthly tax contribution, including the public healthcare contributions - and I’m not even “low income” by any definition.
I just left a job with a health plan for my wife and I, to continue coverage would cost me ~$1810/mo OOP. And, yes, I would then still need to pay more to hit my OOP Maximum.
Wait American health insurance costs THAT MUCH? And then you have to pay MORE to use it? I’d been imagining a few hundred dollars p.m. and still thinking “that’s too much”. How is there anyone in your country who believes that public health could cost more than that?
You guys need serious help, I’m so sorry.
I have a medical treatment coming up that I’d thought was rather expensive, but after learning that it costs the same as 2 months of terrible medical cover in the USA I feel a bit better about it…
Checking in France thanks to the official simulation engine: https://mon-entreprise.urssaf.fr/simulateurs/salaire-brut-net For a 60K€ gross yearly salary, 9 618 € will go towards health insurance (801€ per month).
In the end the cost is not that far from the US, but the benefits are much much higher.
TIL the French are paying a lot more tax than me(no it’s about the same just distributed differently) - but also their health system is Definitely better than my country, so that tracks. That said, your income there is a little bit higher the average French income is only about 43,000€. Pressing the “median wage” button on that link you provided rounds out to only 280€ per month that go to public health care. What I’ve really learnt from this is that I want to move to France now… If only I could get over having to speak French.It’s also tricky to compare, lots of caveats everywhere.
The meme is a little exaggerated.
Since demographics matter for insurance cost. White, male, 30-40yr old married non-smoker.
My insurance monthly is ~350 a month, but I only pay about 80 dollars, and my employer covers the rest.
What do I get for that?
1 eye exam and 1 pair of lenses and 1 frame a year (spending limit on the frame is ~200 IIRC)
1 dental cleaning, 50% coverage on dental procedures, with a maximum benefit of 1500 dollars.
Medical… It’s kinda a crapshoot. 0 dollars for an annual checkup. 25 dollar copay for additional Dr visits. I wanna say 800 dollar copay on ER visits. Maximum out of pocket is 5500 a year.
Also, fuck you if you get injured in some states, most other countries, or if you go to any hospital (or even a particular Dr in a hospital) which isn’t “in network” (PS, there is no way for you to find out who is in-network, and keep your sanity).
Don’t even ask me about pharmacy. It’s practically a roulette. One medication may be 100% covered at one location, and 0% at another. Generic may not be covered, even if it is cheaper and more available than the brand name.
American healthcare isn’t particularly fast either. I injured my ankle about 4 years ago. I tried to establish with a Dr to get it checked out (and avoid exorbitant ER/urgent care fees) and the closest appointment was 4 months out.
My partner and I had to get a covid test in 2020. I called my provider and they said it would be 100% covered. My partner caller thier provider, and their response was “we don’t know, get one done and we’ll see what happens”. They received a 300 dollar bill for the test.
That’s after employer contributions too. But if we had universal Healthcare we could quit our jobs when we’re abused
The $1300-1800 numbers are the total. The employer pays most of that, and you’re left to pay something around $600.
That fully covers preventative care like regular checkups, standard vaccines, and regular screenings.
If you’re in your regular checkup and there’s an issue, it’s no longer free. Any actual issues usually require you to pay around 20% of the inflated cost. However, you get to use a special, untaxed account to pay it. So you end up paying roughly 15%, and the government chips in 5% (through not charging you income taxes on that portion.)
If you spend somewhere around $10k out of pocket (in addition to your $600/month fees, and your employer’s $900/month fees and the government’s ~$700/month they lose by not taxing any of this), THEN everything is free, as long as it’s approved.
So the real benefit of health insurance is that if you get cancer you only have to pay $~20k a year for as long as you keep your job. Try not to get fired for taking to much time for chemotherapy.
And after you go through all this, there are still complications such as which doctors and pharmacies you’re allowed to go to, but most importantly, the health insurance company has a large say in what medications you’re allowed to take.
If you don’t have health insurance and you get sick you probably just go bankrupt.
That’s … that’s a nightmare.
Health insurance company
Another talking point that doesn’t get discussed enough. I didn’t realize my next job didn’t cover until the next calendar month after the start date and that three week gap was long enough that I’m out of therapy and need to try to reinitiate.
Somehow people think their taxes will go up over $1000k a month if it changes to universal.
I live in Canada and I pay less taxes total than what most Americans pay for healthcare alone, yet somehow they think we pay more than them lol.
It’s not just that. They don’t want their taxes to go to paying for other people’s healthcare, even though that’s exactly how private insurance works
It’s even worse than that. Paying private insurance pays for other peoples’ healthcare and the paychecks of MBAs and C-suite execs on top.
I genuinely don’t understand how some people can’t seem to grasp the business model here. For anyone to get any net value out of insurance, by definition, there has to be at minimum an equivalent number of people who pay in more than they would than if they didn’t have insurance at all.
This doesn’t change whether it’s a government-funded single-payer system or a private corporation. The only thing that significantly changes when it is made a private corporation is it (theoretically) permits it to be nimbler to adapt to change by slicing out all the red tape a government-run entity would have, at the cost of shifting the focus from maximizing benefit to the public to profit-seeking that may incidentally also benefit the public from time to time as an occasional side effect.
Insurance isn’t a magic subscription that pulls money out of thin air to pay for everyone’s whatever as long as one is a member, it fundamentally comes from other people getting short-sticked. That is the whole point. You throw money into the abyss when you’re doing well, in exchange the abyss won’t swallow you whole when you’re not doing well. That’s the contract. If everyone who joined was entitled to more than they paid in, we’d call it a Ponzi scheme.
I’m sure you know all this, just venting a rant to no one in particular…
Pretty mental isn’t it!
I’m in Australia. We might be a bit nuts over here but at least we have Medicare. Private health insurance is optional and becoming increasingly expensive, but the public system, although stressed, covers everyone.
We do pay a Medicare levy in our taxes but it’s nothing like USA costs. A few hundred a year I think.
Medicare levy is 2% of income, so you’d pay $1600/year on $80k taxable income.
Insurance in the USA is great if you have a good employer. I pay around $100/month to cover my wife and I, and that includes a $200 deductible (amount you need to pay before the insurance starts covering stuff), $15 doctor visits, $100 for ER, max $15 for generic medication, and a $4k out of pocket maximum per year (after which everything is fully covered). I use a CPAP machine for sleep apnea, and both the machine and supplies are fully covered.
The monthly price plus the deductible is less than what I was paying for the Medicare levy in Australia.
On the other hand, if your employer doesn’t have a good health plan, or you’re unemployed or self-employed, health insurance is way more expensive and the coverage isn’t as great.
The divide between well-off (not necessarily rich, just middle to upper middle class) and poor is significantly larger in the USA than it is in Australia. My parents relied a lot on Australian government assistance when I was young (below market rate government housing, rental assistance to help pay the rent, etc) so I’m very grateful about that.
Honestly I’d be happy to pay more in taxes if it went towards universal healthcare.
I was thinking about this too - the American monthly health insurance cost is significantly more than my entire monthly tax contribution, including the public healthcare contributions - and I’m not even “low income” by any definition.
There are many people that pay more than US$1K a month for their insurance. If they don’t get it through their employer - it costs more.
There will be no help for at least four years.
thats for one person. a family will pretty much pay twice that.
Geographic American here.
I just left a job with a health plan for my wife and I, to continue coverage would cost me ~$1810/mo OOP. And, yes, I would then still need to pay more to hit my OOP Maximum.