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I keep hearing that you will 'go bankrupt' with every minor health issue in the US. Do you actually live in the US? Have you used US healthcare? I pay for my

I keep hearing that you will 'go bankrupt' with every minor health issue in the US. Do you actually live in the US? Have you used US healthcare? I pay for my own health insurance (because I own my own company) and while not cheap, it's affordable. I think I pay around $250 US/month. I get regular checkups included (most prescriptions cost me $10 or less) and I had a colonoscopy last year and it cost me less that $50. If I had major surgery, I would be out a couple of grand. While it does have problems, it's nowhere near as bad as many would like you to think.

tyingq 10y ago
Aside from the deductible, most insurance plans in the US cover only a percentage of costs. 80 or 90 percent is common. For a single, simple, surgery it's bearable. Something like cancer, with ct scans, chemo, radiation, surgery with a 1 week hospital stay, etc...can bankrupt you.
- brianwawok 10y ago
  90 percent up to out of pocket max. My out of pocket max has always been between 1k and 5k per year. So if I need 1 million dollar cancer treatment, I don't pay 100k. I pay 5k. So no I cannot go bankrupt with health insurance in the US.
  - tyingq 10y ago
    The ACA did fix some of that, but there are situations that can still be challenging. The max out of pocket can be higher than yours..close to $8k/person, and it's annual, so if you get sick late in the year, the clock starts over. It's also not uncommon to have to go out of network for certain types of treatment, which opens up more doors. Also, many people aren't able to work when they are sick.
  - senior_james 10y ago
    I see you have actual experience with the system. Most people commenting here seem to be parroting talking points from politicians. When I actually post my real experiences, I get down voted to -2. ....and we wonder why there are so many broken systems in the US.
    - vacri 10y ago
      You called $250/month affordable, which is almost an entire week's salary full-time on the federal minimum wage. 20% of your wage for a poor person is not 'affordable'. There are 45M people poor enough to be on food stamps in the US - the average monthly net income of these people is $335[0]. [0]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/food-stamps-still-feed-one-in-seven-americans-despite-recovery https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/food-stam...
      - brianwawok 10y ago
        Median household income is 52k. At 52k, you get massive ACA subsidies. At say 75k or 100k, yes you can afford the $250 (or more realistically $1000 or $1500) it costs to get a family health insurance.
- senior_james 10y ago
  "Something like cancer, with ct scans, chemo, radiation, surgery with a 1 week hospital stay, etc...can bankrupt you." Again, I will have to disagree. Do you have any actual experience with this or are you going to just give me more talking points.... My wife's sister went through stage 2 breast cancer over the past 2 years and she had her own insurance plan as well. After 4 major surgeries and 1 year of chemo, her total expenses are $10K. You can negotiate with hospitals and they almost always have payment plans with 0 interest for a few years. She negotiate it down to $5K, which is pretty reasonable, considering the amount of time she spent in the hospital. My Aunt lives in Canada and she had thyroid cancer a couple of years ago. Because it wasn't considered 'life threatening', she had to go before a health board to determine when she should actually receive surgery. They determined that she could have surgery in 2 years. This was unacceptable, so she went over the border to the US and got it done in a month. I would much rather have the option of actually getting the surgery done in a timely fashion than having to go before a board (IE: the 'death panels' that everyone talks about) to determine my fate. The US healthcare system does need work, but many people use hyperbole and have never experienced it first-hand.
  - dota_fanatic 10y ago
    There is no single US healthcare system that someone can experience first-hand. There is a lot of variation from state to state. I take you haven't experienced the system as someone, say, making less than $25k/yr, in every single state, at various times of year (say 2 months before your deductible rolls over) with various kinds of conditions (acute, chronic, extremely rare, etc?), at various points in their careers (if they can even claim to use that word)? And you've experienced this in a range of personal contexts? with various mental issues, or with dependents, or with poor mathematical skills coming out of a bad-fit-for-them public schooling system, or no slack to even be able to take any time off, no PTO? There are millions of Americans who can't afford $250/mo on top of food, rent, and transportation costs, working more than full-time hours spread across several jobs, all of which pay minimum wage in poor conditions that are bad for their bodies and with unpredictable scheduling. In light of the reality of many, many people's experiences in the healthcare system that are contrary to your own, which are NOT hard to find, your comments comes across quite poorly.
xapata 10y ago
In other states it's more like $400 per month for the cheapest, $5k annual deductible insurance. Keep in mind that many people would be bankrupted by a $5k expense.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

tyingq 10y ago

Aside from the deductible, most insurance plans in the US cover only a percentage of costs. 80 or 90 percent is common. For a single, simple, surgery it's bearable. Something like cancer, with ct scans, chemo, radiation, surgery with a 1 week hospital stay, etc...can bankrupt you.

brianwawok 10y ago
90 percent up to out of pocket max. My out of pocket max has always been between 1k and 5k per year. So if I need 1 million dollar cancer treatment, I don't pay 100k. I pay 5k. So no I cannot go bankrupt with health insurance in the US.
- tyingq 10y ago
  The ACA did fix some of that, but there are situations that can still be challenging. The max out of pocket can be higher than yours..close to $8k/person, and it's annual, so if you get sick late in the year, the clock starts over. It's also not uncommon to have to go out of network for certain types of treatment, which opens up more doors. Also, many people aren't able to work when they are sick.
- senior_james 10y ago
  I see you have actual experience with the system. Most people commenting here seem to be parroting talking points from politicians. When I actually post my real experiences, I get down voted to -2. ....and we wonder why there are so many broken systems in the US.
  - vacri 10y ago
    You called $250/month affordable, which is almost an entire week's salary full-time on the federal minimum wage. 20% of your wage for a poor person is not 'affordable'. There are 45M people poor enough to be on food stamps in the US - the average monthly net income of these people is $335[0]. [0]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/food-stamps-still-feed-one-in-seven-americans-despite-recovery https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/food-stam...
    - brianwawok 10y ago
      Median household income is 52k. At 52k, you get massive ACA subsidies. At say 75k or 100k, yes you can afford the $250 (or more realistically $1000 or $1500) it costs to get a family health insurance.
senior_james 10y ago
"Something like cancer, with ct scans, chemo, radiation, surgery with a 1 week hospital stay, etc...can bankrupt you." Again, I will have to disagree. Do you have any actual experience with this or are you going to just give me more talking points.... My wife's sister went through stage 2 breast cancer over the past 2 years and she had her own insurance plan as well. After 4 major surgeries and 1 year of chemo, her total expenses are $10K. You can negotiate with hospitals and they almost always have payment plans with 0 interest for a few years. She negotiate it down to $5K, which is pretty reasonable, considering the amount of time she spent in the hospital. My Aunt lives in Canada and she had thyroid cancer a couple of years ago. Because it wasn't considered 'life threatening', she had to go before a health board to determine when she should actually receive surgery. They determined that she could have surgery in 2 years. This was unacceptable, so she went over the border to the US and got it done in a month. I would much rather have the option of actually getting the surgery done in a timely fashion than having to go before a board (IE: the 'death panels' that everyone talks about) to determine my fate. The US healthcare system does need work, but many people use hyperbole and have never experienced it first-hand.
- dota_fanatic 10y ago
  There is no single US healthcare system that someone can experience first-hand. There is a lot of variation from state to state. I take you haven't experienced the system as someone, say, making less than $25k/yr, in every single state, at various times of year (say 2 months before your deductible rolls over) with various kinds of conditions (acute, chronic, extremely rare, etc?), at various points in their careers (if they can even claim to use that word)? And you've experienced this in a range of personal contexts? with various mental issues, or with dependents, or with poor mathematical skills coming out of a bad-fit-for-them public schooling system, or no slack to even be able to take any time off, no PTO? There are millions of Americans who can't afford $250/mo on top of food, rent, and transportation costs, working more than full-time hours spread across several jobs, all of which pay minimum wage in poor conditions that are bad for their bodies and with unpredictable scheduling. In light of the reality of many, many people's experiences in the healthcare system that are contrary to your own, which are NOT hard to find, your comments comes across quite poorly.

xapata 10y ago

In other states it's more like $400 per month for the cheapest, $5k annual deductible insurance. Keep in mind that many people would be bankrupted by a $5k expense.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]