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health insurance is my big wish. 20 hrs/wk with health insurance I'd work for 1/3rd my salary. EDIT: I have a family like most people. EDIT2: I'm thinking abo
by x87678r 6y ago
health insurance is my big wish. 20 hrs/wk with health insurance I'd work for 1/3rd my salary.
EDIT: I have a family like most people.
EDIT2: I'm thinking about how insurance isn't as expensive as giving up more than that in salary, but maybe I need the security of steady work on the resume, sick leave and a job to lean on if things get tough.
- ahelwer 6y agoIf you're single and willing to pay over $500/month you can get some pretty okay health insurance. Families throw a huge wrench in that plan though. Currently I'm just using COBRA. Nothing crystalizes support for medicare-for-all faster than ten seconds looking at the public health insurance marketplace.
- animationwill 6y agoHow long can you use COBRA for after leaving an employer? I tried to find that answer, but the info was conflicting on the Internet. Is it 18 months?
- nabaraz 6y ago18 months is the standard. It goes like: Employee's quitting, termination or reduction in hours: 18 months Employee's divorce: 36 months It can be further extended based on other events like disability, partner's illness etc.
- tayo42 6y agoThats like making payments on a luxury car and not using it
- popotamonga 6y agoHow come its so expensive? The top top insurance in my european country is $100 and a pretty good is 30.
- chefkoch 6y agoWhere is that? In Germany i pay 480€ for a top notch private plan.
- znpy 6y agoYou're not accounting for, uhm... freedom. /s
- thespoonbends 6y agoPublic health systems often subsidise private health care, so some of that difference will come from taxes.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- brianwawok 6y agoWhat is your take home pay as a software dev after insurance, vs the US? My math says the US still wins big for the top half of society (and loses for the bottom)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoa) Costs/prices in the US are inflated in the entire industry for a bunch of reasons that basically boil down to half a century of lack of incentive to control costs b) Your cost isn't actually $100. Your cost at the point of service is $100 but you're paying more taxes which subsidize your healthcare (among other things). edit: And before some snarky jerk tries to score some cheap virtue points by saying something to the tune of "well I am perfectly ok paying more taxes for healthcare". I was deliberately avoiding making a value judgement one way of the other and simply explaining why his bill at the point of service is lower.
- fooblat 6y agoI don't think difference in taxes is as much as people think. I have lived and worked in many cities in the US as well as a couple of central European countries. Once you get into a high salary range the taxes aren't much different. The exception being if you have a bunch of kids then you will pay lower taxes in the US. However, you will also have increased costs including medical for the kids.
- marketingPro 6y agoSince you posted the myth that health insurance is better when you pay more, I highly recommend reading this article explaining why the lowest cost plan is likely the best during the most expensive medical situations https://efficiencyiseverything.com/engineering-conclusions-on-health-insurance/ https://efficiencyiseverything.com/engineering-conclusions-o... Don't get me wrong, healthcare is the most corrupt industry in the United States (by lobbying dollars). But I give some blame to my peers for not even attempting to understand how insurance works.
- h1srf 6y ago> Make sure your hospital, clinics, doctors, accept your insurance I understand what they're saying but no one plans to get sick (pregnancies aside). Cheaper plans within the same insurance group is probably ok. Which hospital you can go to can be the difference between life and death, especially these days: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/nyregion/Coronavirus-hospitals.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/01/nyregion/Coronavirus-hosp...
- thebean11 6y agoI came to this conclusion myself a few months ago, that getting the cheapest plan and hitting the max out of pocket every single year is the cheapest course of action if you buy your own insurance plan. Kind of figured there was a catch though, maybe not!
- toast0 6y agoYeah, as far as I could tell when shopping for exchange plans, they all mostly cover the same stuff, and once you pick the company and HMO/EPO/PPO the metal choice definitely doesn't change what's covered or the provider network. At that point, different metals might hit the out of pocket max sooner, but I just went for the one with the least total of premiums and out of pocket max, which was also the one with the least total of premiums, so I save money if I don't use it or if we hit the cap.
- marketingPro 6y agoOnly difference is who is in network.
- reincarnate0x14 6y ago"pretty okay" is unfortunately about the best you'll find, and even that can be iffy depending on where you are. If someone's work is truly all-remote I'd seriously recommend looking into residency visas to places with functioning governments and healthcare. I'm currently working remotely at a US client from several locations in the Pacific. I just had a complete auditory workup to diagnose some recent hearing changes that included consultation with a US-educated doctor, and some medication, and the total cost without any sort of insurance was ~250 USD. My monthly insurance premium at home is 400 USD and likely wouldn't even have covered half of that, because fuck you, that's why.
- hnaccy 6y agoWhat countries are good for this?
- reincarnate0x14 6y agoWell it's more limited right now but under normal circumstances most of southern Europe, Pacific Asia, New Zealand, European-associated Caribbean islands, Costa Rica, Belize, etc, are all decent options. I spent several months working from the Canary Islands and other than my difficulties in mastering the local Spanish it was great.
- PopeDotNinja 6y agoDid you make it to La Palma? I did my coronavirus lockdown there. A nice place to be stuck :)
- danans 6y ago> Families throw a huge wrench in that plan though. > Nothing crystalizes support for medicare-for-all faster... It's pretty messed up that the lack of universal healthcare throws a huge wrench in the thing that generates the future of society, at least among financially self-aware young people. It used to be even worse just a few years ago. Before the ACA insurance companies often considered pregnancy a pre-existing condition: https://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/aca-pregnancy-faq#:~:text=At%20that%20time%2C%20many%20health,buy%20it%20on%20your%20own.&text=An%20insurance%20company%20can't,your%20sex%20or%20health%20condition https://www.webmd.com/health-insurance/aca-pregnancy-faq#:~:....
- redler 6y ago...and with cases pending before the Supreme Court, we're on the cusp of the societal shock of a sudden return to this situation.
- tuna-piano 6y agoDepends on the state, but seems like if you're single, the individual plans in most states are around $3-500 per month with a ~$6k out of pocket max. This means annually: -$4,800 in premiums -$11k maximum health costs
- mgkimsal 6y agoAnd for 2 people - $10k/year. That 'maximum health costs' also doesn't really factor in the time having to deal with insurance companies chasing up decisions they make (or don't), and for money/income lost due to no work. Insurance for that - short term disability insurance - may add another $100/month on the the equation.
- jrumbut 6y agoCheck out college/grad school. You can do a couple classes and get excellent coverage for cheap. When I did it it worked out to paying $3k for an MS, but I bet you could look harder and get the degree and a discount over just buying a high quality plan.
- JoblessWonder 6y agoWait... you paid $3,000 for a MS program?
- neogodless 6y agoWhen I contracted in 2018, I paid $650-700/month for a pretty good "silver" insurance plan covering my wife (34 then) and I (39 then). Definitely varies by state and availability of insurers. But it was by choice... 1099 rate easily covered all taxes and insurance with room to spare and allowed be to set up a solo LLC and dump a buttload of pre-tax money into a 401(k)... About $53k in one year. Taking time off was hard for me mentally with that high rate, knowing how much gross income I'd give up to take a week off for a trip.
- jsjohnst 6y ago> dump a buttload of pre-tax money into a 401(k)... About $53k in one year. That’s like double the IRS allowed maximum for pre-tax 401k deferral in a year, no? This is not my area of expertise so I could easily be unaware of something. Can you explain how you did this as I’m genuinely curious and want to do the same.
- neogodless 6y agonp-1 has it right. As a small business employing yourself, you can "profit share" much more than the $19k individual limit.
- JauntTrooper 6y agoThere's something that's often referred to as the "Mega Backdoor Roth" that lets you shelter an extra $37,500 per year beyond the traditional 401(k) limits.
- mercutio2 6y agoTrue, but that tax sheltering is of future income, it's not pre-tax in the normal-employee case.
- np- 6y agoThere is a separate, higher IRS max for employee+employer contribution (this is why many jobs can offer 401k matching), and that number is somewhere around $55k these days. But there is a loophole—when you are your own employer, i.e. self employed, you can contribute that full amount to your own 401k.
- hackbinary 6y agoOr, you know, vote in a government that will do single payer insurance.
- buzzerbetrayed 6y agoYeah, just let him do that real quick...
- hackbinary 6y agoHealthcare seems like it is a pretty big problem in the USA. The USA spends ~20% of GDP on healthcare, while the other advanced economies spend around 10%. For whatever reason, American love to malign things as socialist, and confuse communist totalitarian with socialism.