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The crux of his prescription is to reserve insurance for the catastrophic, low-probability events like getting cancer or hit by a bus, but high-deductible catas
by irons 16y ago
The crux of his prescription is to reserve insurance for the catastrophic, low-probability events like getting cancer or hit by a bus, but high-deductible catastrophic plans seem carefully calibrated to make you go bankrupt anyway. Given any other choices at all, I wouldn't trust my heath to one.
I reviewed plans with a health insurance broker in Washington state in September, who openly mocked some Regence (Blue Shield) coverage with a fifteen hundred dollar annual limit on "complex imaging", which means MRIs, CAT scans, PET scans, mammography, etc. He said, "Do you have any idea how many scans you'd get if you had cancer?", and that $1500 might cover most of the first one. If you missed that detail and got sick, you might as well not have insurance.
- jon_hendry 16y agoP(cancer) >> P(hit by a bus) I know a woman under 40 who had cancer, and a woman under 30 who had cancer. And I may know more, for all I know. Plus plenty of over-50s who've had cancer. And my social sphere is not all that large. I'd have to say cancer is not really a low-probability event.
- orangecat 16y agoI reviewed plans with a health insurance broker in Washington state in September, who openly mocked some Regence (Blue Shield) coverage with a fifteen hundred dollar annual limit That's not high-deductible, it's low-benefit. A high deductible plan would have you pay out of pocket up to $5k or $10k, and then cover everything above that. I agree that a plan that caps benefits (at something less than $1 million or so) is practically worthless, because the sort of events you actually want to insure against get expensive really fast.
- irons 16y agoThat's not high-deductible, it's low-benefit. I have less experience shopping for group plans, but in the individual market you will die of natural causes before you find a high-deductible, high-benefit plan, let alone one without fatal loopholes.