It’s cheaper to pay cash than use insurance. But for the last decade in my state it’s required to have it you get penalized.
My plan is for kiaser HMO. And its 36k/yr.
The cash price for a baby, 3 day stay everything included is 20k. A doctor’s visit is $50 dollars. A xray is $150. And say i wanted weight loss drugs like ozemic every month for $700/month. I could have a child, be medicated by experimental weight loss drugs, get an xray every month, and have a personal relationship with my doctor they month and it would still be cheaper than paying for insurance.
That’s why they require it, your premium helps pay for other people who can’t pay. But if you are paying for it, you are getting screwed hard.
American style health insurance is a scam. I pay around 600 euros a month in Germany, for me and two kids, and there’s no such thing as “copay”. Delivering a baby costed us about 8 euros in parking fees. This is a private company offering insurance, there’s no single payer in Germany. Other European and Asian countries do have single payer, with similar costs (the contribution is then a tax instead of insurance payment). It’s the American “five yachts per CEO” model that causes problems.
Yes, for most people, in most years. But the cost of health care tends to be very, very unevenly distributed. A person might see medical bills of less than $1000 per year for 20 years and then get a single $1,000,000 year. So at that point, it’s an annualized cost of $50,000 per year, even if most years it’s about $1,000. Some estimates are that 10-30% of all medical spending in the US is in the last year of life.
Many believe that because of this distribution, health insurance should primarily be a catastrophic care model where most people pay a premium that doesn’t cover anything for the first few thousand, then covers a percentage of the cost up to the out of pocket maximum of like $15,000 or so for a family, but does cover everything after that. For a typical household, being able to predict annual healthcare expenses for the entire year is very useful.
And personally, I’m pretty sympathetic to this catastrophic care model as a short term transition to an all payer model that looks like Switzerland’s system (private insurance, private providers, mandatory coverage, strict price controls, and subsidies for anyone who can’t afford the normal premiums).
If you could predict everything perfectly then that’s fine. What if instead of a normal delivery, you needed a week in the NICU? Then that $20k quickly becomes $100k.
And it would still be cheaper for me with cash. Over 20 years, that insurance will cost be 700k.
In that time, I’ve had 2 kids, 4 bad sicknesses that required medical visits, 4 xrays, and MRI, antibiotics, my kid needed a leg cast, and my wife had p.depression after one kid.
I would be out ahead 500k if i paid cash vs insurance. That a house.
It’s cheaper to pay cash than use insurance. But for the last decade in my state it’s required to have it you get penalized.
My plan is for kiaser HMO. And its 36k/yr.
The cash price for a baby, 3 day stay everything included is 20k. A doctor’s visit is $50 dollars. A xray is $150. And say i wanted weight loss drugs like ozemic every month for $700/month. I could have a child, be medicated by experimental weight loss drugs, get an xray every month, and have a personal relationship with my doctor they month and it would still be cheaper than paying for insurance.
That’s why they require it, your premium helps pay for other people who can’t pay. But if you are paying for it, you are getting screwed hard.
Until you need surgery and it’s 400k. For clarity insurance is a scam. Not going without it in today’s climate is taking a massive risk, though
Total scam. Shouldn’t exist. I hate it.
American style health insurance is a scam. I pay around 600 euros a month in Germany, for me and two kids, and there’s no such thing as “copay”. Delivering a baby costed us about 8 euros in parking fees. This is a private company offering insurance, there’s no single payer in Germany. Other European and Asian countries do have single payer, with similar costs (the contribution is then a tax instead of insurance payment). It’s the American “five yachts per CEO” model that causes problems.
Yes, for most people, in most years. But the cost of health care tends to be very, very unevenly distributed. A person might see medical bills of less than $1000 per year for 20 years and then get a single $1,000,000 year. So at that point, it’s an annualized cost of $50,000 per year, even if most years it’s about $1,000. Some estimates are that 10-30% of all medical spending in the US is in the last year of life.
Many believe that because of this distribution, health insurance should primarily be a catastrophic care model where most people pay a premium that doesn’t cover anything for the first few thousand, then covers a percentage of the cost up to the out of pocket maximum of like $15,000 or so for a family, but does cover everything after that. For a typical household, being able to predict annual healthcare expenses for the entire year is very useful.
And personally, I’m pretty sympathetic to this catastrophic care model as a short term transition to an all payer model that looks like Switzerland’s system (private insurance, private providers, mandatory coverage, strict price controls, and subsidies for anyone who can’t afford the normal premiums).
If you could predict everything perfectly then that’s fine. What if instead of a normal delivery, you needed a week in the NICU? Then that $20k quickly becomes $100k.
And it would still be cheaper for me with cash. Over 20 years, that insurance will cost be 700k.
In that time, I’ve had 2 kids, 4 bad sicknesses that required medical visits, 4 xrays, and MRI, antibiotics, my kid needed a leg cast, and my wife had p.depression after one kid.
I would be out ahead 500k if i paid cash vs insurance. That a house.
Again, in America, until literally anything happens. I’ve seen 7 figure bills hit ridiculously quick.