So I actually had a health-related bankruptcy. 1: Your insurance is tied to your employer but you can also get insurance on the private market. Generally Emplo

So I actually had a health-related bankruptcy. 1: Your insurance is tied to your employer but you can also get insurance on the private market. Generally Employer insurance is much much cheaper as the employer can negotiate with a large number of seats over costs and has a vested interest in employee health. 2: Health insurance generally works like car insurance with a deductible that you pay out of pocket to a point and then everything past that point is covered by insurance. Some services (such as a doctors visit or ER visit may be covered at a set price [such as $40 a visit]) whereas an Xray or such would be billed to you until you hit deductible. The deductible on a PPO plan may be something like $2,000. Now..let me tell you the insane ball game here. You may think: Well if health insurance is like $400 a month, if I'm healthy, why even have it? For one, there was a Tax fine for not having health insurance of ~$600. For another...Hospitals bill non-insurance patients full amount but insurance companies (who when you have health insurance act as middlemen) an agreed upon amount. These amounts are massively different. I had just lost my company insurance when I became a contractor for another company, I did not have insurance yet. I ended up in the ICU for 6 days due to a really crazy blood pressure related inter-cerebral hemorrhage. I found myself two weeks later being asked to pay over $100,000 over the phone by their billing department. Talking to someone, I was told to ask for an itemized bill. It was over 50 pages long. It noted an MRI as a $6,500 procedure. Later I got insurance and went back for a follow up MRI. The insurance company sent me a bill for the co-pay and on it I saw the same $6,500.00 bill...but with a line item below it: `Insurance Group Discount -$6,120.00` America. The fact of the matter is that healthcare costs are really not that high, but insurance companies are hedged into the position that they are made necessary by the system and everyone is required to hold it. In a country with universal healthcare none of this exists as all prices are set and approved by the country making it all public.