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>All these "the ACA raised my premiums crap" is just that. You didn't have heath insurance before, you had a program that you thought was health insurance but w

>All these "the ACA raised my premiums crap" is just that. You didn't have heath insurance before, you had a program that you thought was health insurance but would have absolutely bankrupted the average person if you ever needed to draw on it. Why do you say that with certainty? I had a low premium / high deductible plan that was a good fit for me at the time that was both simple and lived up to it's promises, something I have not encountered since.

arcticbull 7y ago
A high deductible plan would bankrupt the average person if they ever needed to draw on it. The average American can't come up with $500 let alone $5000 so for them the high-deductible plan (the only only the could afford) is as good as nothing at all. You're still going to be relying on medicaid. It's not a real health insurance plan because it doesn't cover the realities of every-day life. You're leveraging (literal) survivorship bias in defense of this plan. You could make the same exact case if you didn't have health coverage at all, and nothing happened to you (that it was a good fit for you and it was both simple and lived up to its promises).
- Stronico 7y ago
  By your reasoning is there any circumstance where a high deductible plan, albeit paired with an HSA, could ever work for anyone, at any time? Because it worked quite nicely for me for quite some time.
  - throwaway5752 7y ago
    Yes, if we allowed people that could not pay for treatment to die? That's the rub, right? If 999 out 1000 people in your insurance make the right decision, but one person gets... emergent liver failure by Hep C or needs a lung transplant, then the system only works if it is ruthless and the cost for treatment is not socialized (Medicaid).
- zepto 7y ago
  What if Stronico could afford $5000 in an emergency, and could also afford to pay for the much smaller incidental treatments not covered? It is clearly false for you to claim Stronico didn’t have insurance. If something serious had happened they would have paid the $5000 and the rest would have been covered by their plan. I agree that this might not work for the average American, but that’s the only valid part of your claim.
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    To your point I was speaking of the average American and not necessarily the poster themselves. Their plan worked just as well as not having insurance because they didn't need to draw on it.
    - zepto 7y ago
      This is misleading. Their plan would also have worked had they needed to draw on it. The fact that they didn’t need to draw on it has no bearing on whether their plan would have worked for them.
      - arcticbull 7y ago
        Again, not for the average American.
        zepto 7y ago
        Firstly there in fact are no average Americans. If you want to use a statistical model to say how many people it would or would not work for, by all means do so, but otherwise this is just an empty definition. Secondly, you actually argued that it only didn’t work for him because he didn’t make a claim. That has nothing to do with the average American and is simply a false statement. I agree that it wouldn’t work for everyone. But it would clearly work for many people, including him. If you want to argue about the average American, then you need numbers and facts, otherwise it’s just an empty opinion.
- fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
  "The average American can't come up with $500" >The lowest-income households in the U.S. on average spend $412 annually on lottery tickets[1] >In the U.S., people living below the poverty level and people having lower levels of educational attainment have higher rates of cigarette smoking than the general population[2] >Among smoking households, the mean quarterly expenditure on cigarettes in constant 2015 dollars was US$458[3] [1]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-12/the-poorest-americans-risk-the-most-in-hopes-of-striking-it-rich https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-12/the-poore... [2]https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/disparities/low-ses/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/disparities/low-ses/index.htm [3]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6009464/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6009464/
  - rkho 7y ago
    I think the meaning here is that the average American finds themselves unable to execute on the fact that they have the means to save an emergency fund and are instead too focused on the short-term dopamine hits that they can get immediately.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    Being able to come up with a dollar a day isn't the same as being able to come up with a year's worth of lump sum at once. Being poor changes how you think about money. Every time you save a few dollars, something happens - an unexpectedly high electricity bill, an unexpected doctor visit, losing your phone - and that minute bit of savings goes out the door. It's easy to get into the thought pattern that you might as well spend on something fun while you've got it. As for cigarettes, being as addictive than heroin will do that to ya.
    - fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
      Does not saving prevent those events from happening? How are those events handled without savings? How would giving them more money resolve this problem?
      - ceejayoz 7y ago

arcticbull 7y ago

A high deductible plan would bankrupt the average person if they ever needed to draw on it. The average American can't come up with $500 let alone $5000 so for them the high-deductible plan (the only only the could afford) is as good as nothing at all. You're still going to be relying on medicaid. It's not a real health insurance plan because it doesn't cover the realities of every-day life. You're leveraging (literal) survivorship bias in defense of this plan. You could make the same exact case if you didn't have health coverage at all, and nothing happened to you (that it was a good fit for you and it was both simple and lived up to its promises).

Stronico 7y ago
By your reasoning is there any circumstance where a high deductible plan, albeit paired with an HSA, could ever work for anyone, at any time? Because it worked quite nicely for me for quite some time.
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  Yes, if we allowed people that could not pay for treatment to die? That's the rub, right? If 999 out 1000 people in your insurance make the right decision, but one person gets... emergent liver failure by Hep C or needs a lung transplant, then the system only works if it is ruthless and the cost for treatment is not socialized (Medicaid).
zepto 7y ago
What if Stronico could afford $5000 in an emergency, and could also afford to pay for the much smaller incidental treatments not covered? It is clearly false for you to claim Stronico didn’t have insurance. If something serious had happened they would have paid the $5000 and the rest would have been covered by their plan. I agree that this might not work for the average American, but that’s the only valid part of your claim.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  To your point I was speaking of the average American and not necessarily the poster themselves. Their plan worked just as well as not having insurance because they didn't need to draw on it.
  - zepto 7y ago
    This is misleading. Their plan would also have worked had they needed to draw on it. The fact that they didn’t need to draw on it has no bearing on whether their plan would have worked for them.
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      Again, not for the average American.
      - zepto 7y ago
        Firstly there in fact are no average Americans. If you want to use a statistical model to say how many people it would or would not work for, by all means do so, but otherwise this is just an empty definition. Secondly, you actually argued that it only didn’t work for him because he didn’t make a claim. That has nothing to do with the average American and is simply a false statement. I agree that it wouldn’t work for everyone. But it would clearly work for many people, including him. If you want to argue about the average American, then you need numbers and facts, otherwise it’s just an empty opinion.
fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
"The average American can't come up with $500" >The lowest-income households in the U.S. on average spend $412 annually on lottery tickets[1] >In the U.S., people living below the poverty level and people having lower levels of educational attainment have higher rates of cigarette smoking than the general population[2] >Among smoking households, the mean quarterly expenditure on cigarettes in constant 2015 dollars was US$458[3] [1]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-12/the-poorest-americans-risk-the-most-in-hopes-of-striking-it-rich https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-12/the-poore... [2]https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/disparities/low-ses/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/disparities/low-ses/index.htm [3]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6009464/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6009464/
- rkho 7y ago
  I think the meaning here is that the average American finds themselves unable to execute on the fact that they have the means to save an emergency fund and are instead too focused on the short-term dopamine hits that they can get immediately.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  Being able to come up with a dollar a day isn't the same as being able to come up with a year's worth of lump sum at once. Being poor changes how you think about money. Every time you save a few dollars, something happens - an unexpectedly high electricity bill, an unexpected doctor visit, losing your phone - and that minute bit of savings goes out the door. It's easy to get into the thought pattern that you might as well spend on something fun while you've got it. As for cigarettes, being as addictive than heroin will do that to ya.
  - fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
    Does not saving prevent those events from happening? How are those events handled without savings? How would giving them more money resolve this problem?
    - ceejayoz 7y ago