7 ms·

I am not in US, but I lived paycheck to paycheck some time ago when I was already in the top 5% earners of my country. The reason for it: 1. Chronic Health is

I am not in US, but I lived paycheck to paycheck some time ago when I was already in the top 5% earners of my country. The reason for it: 1. Chronic Health issues that are fairly expensive to treat, coupled with the fact I am too wealthy to get government help (this actually was my biggest money sink). 2. Renting in a place "near enough" of my workplace. (still wasn't that near, and the place was tiny, when I moved out a lot of furniture fit inside a hatchback car). 3. Constant inflation + health issues I mentioned before that require me have a diet of items that are more expensive. (I can't live off ramen...). 4. Thankfully this part is over, but some years ago there was the student debts too, at one point I had to pay to service my debt literally half of all my earnings, and had to pay food and rent with the other half.

giantg2 5y ago
I agree for the general population. But shouldn't a job paying 6 figures have decent insurance? I have two dependents with major health issues, hitting out of pocket max every year. Still I am able to save for retirement and not live paycheck to paycheck. I do not earn 6 figures.
- ChuckNorris89 5y ago
  >But shouldn't a job paying 6 figures have decent insurance? Parent said he/she isn't from the US where this would be the norm. Here in the EU (Austria), in most cases you get no extra private insurance even with a high salary, just your public one, which in some cases may not be enough, especially if you optimize for quality doctors/therapists with short waiting times, which are all private, so you end up having to dig into your savings if you care about your health (who doesn't?). Still, at least even the poor and unemployed have access to half decent healthcare without going bankrupt so there's at least one silver lining.
  - giantg2 5y ago
    That's fair. I guess the interesting part is that many of the people in the US want public healthcare and generally think that the international examples cover everything.
    - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
      Like someone else here said it, universal healthcare isn't some magical talisman that makes all your health issues go away as long as you pay your taxes. Sure, if you have life threatening condition that needs to be addressed ASAP or else you'll die, you usually get taken care of without it ruining you financially like in the US would, but since the public system is massively understaffed and underfunded, then many health issues which are not life threatening but still impact your quality of life, can end up being out of packet, which sucks, as most Europeans aren't exactly rolling in disposable income (but at least they're not heavily in debt either). For example, in Austria, the amount of free care you get in case of an accident depend on where it happened. If it's at work, or on your way to/from work, then everything is fully covered, but if you get injured in your spare time, then only life threatening stuff is covered, for the rest, quality of life issues, you have to pay out of packet to have them fixed or have private accident insurance. Basically the public healthcare covers as little as to get you able-bodied to get back to work again, that's it. If you also want to feel 100% again, then you gotta pay up out of pocket. Since medical school is basically free, Austria has 3x the doctors per capita than the US, yet waiting times for specialists or some procedures are far longer. Why is that, you ask? Because most doctors here don't like being burned out in the understaffed public system, so once they served their "minimum sentence" in the public system to cover their "debt" for their public education, they go into private practice, which means that despite having 3x the doctors than the US, the public system is in a perpetual shortage of personnel. The state just doesn't have enough money to pay for every heath issue for everyone, but only the gravest of heath issues, and with our ageing population and stagnating economy, the situation is getting worse by the year. I heard Sweden, Finland and other rich EU countries have similar issues in their public system.
    - legitster 5y ago
      This is a good reminder that people in the US have such a myopic view of our own issues. https://twitter.com/BadEconTakes/status/1228143455399858176 https://twitter.com/BadEconTakes/status/1228143455399858176 A better way to understand our problems is that our medicaid and medicare programs are the most generous in the world - so much so that extending it universally is so friggin expensive.
- mirntyfirty 5y ago
  Decent insurance generally requires the purchaser to have either high premium or high deductible.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  Even with decent insurance, a chronic heath issue can easily result in bankruptcy or having to live paycheck to paycheck, especially if you trip up on any of the landmines like going "out of network" or having a procedure that your insurance decides they don't want to pay for. The system is set up to extract the maximum amount of money from the patient they think they can get away with. And don't even get me started on end-of-life care which is undeniably set up specifically to soak whatever savings the elderly have set aside. I think some people, maybe who are generally healthy and don't have to deal with continuously fighting with their health insurance company and hospitals, think that having health insurance is like a magical talisman that makes all your bills disappear.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - giantg2 5y ago
    I'm aware of the BS they pull. I've spend numerous hours on the phone this week trying to get a prescription filled. I have to pay out of pocket, but they aren't able to submit the claim for it to count towards my deductible. Why? Because they decided to designate a generic medication as a name brand. So even though it was 100% covered last year, now I have to pay 100% ($175/month) until the deductible is hit. I'm also forced to use s specific chain. But they couldn't file the claim toward my deductible because the software system at the chain wouldn't allow for it to be submitted as a brand name (because it's truly a generic). So this whole fiasco is because they decide to designate a generic as a name brand just so they can charge us more, and the geniuses making this change didn't even check to see if their system could handle that new business process.

giantg2 5y ago

I agree for the general population. But shouldn't a job paying 6 figures have decent insurance? I have two dependents with major health issues, hitting out of pocket max every year. Still I am able to save for retirement and not live paycheck to paycheck. I do not earn 6 figures.

ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>But shouldn't a job paying 6 figures have decent insurance? Parent said he/she isn't from the US where this would be the norm. Here in the EU (Austria), in most cases you get no extra private insurance even with a high salary, just your public one, which in some cases may not be enough, especially if you optimize for quality doctors/therapists with short waiting times, which are all private, so you end up having to dig into your savings if you care about your health (who doesn't?). Still, at least even the poor and unemployed have access to half decent healthcare without going bankrupt so there's at least one silver lining.
- giantg2 5y ago
  That's fair. I guess the interesting part is that many of the people in the US want public healthcare and generally think that the international examples cover everything.
  - ChuckNorris89 5y ago
    Like someone else here said it, universal healthcare isn't some magical talisman that makes all your health issues go away as long as you pay your taxes. Sure, if you have life threatening condition that needs to be addressed ASAP or else you'll die, you usually get taken care of without it ruining you financially like in the US would, but since the public system is massively understaffed and underfunded, then many health issues which are not life threatening but still impact your quality of life, can end up being out of packet, which sucks, as most Europeans aren't exactly rolling in disposable income (but at least they're not heavily in debt either). For example, in Austria, the amount of free care you get in case of an accident depend on where it happened. If it's at work, or on your way to/from work, then everything is fully covered, but if you get injured in your spare time, then only life threatening stuff is covered, for the rest, quality of life issues, you have to pay out of packet to have them fixed or have private accident insurance. Basically the public healthcare covers as little as to get you able-bodied to get back to work again, that's it. If you also want to feel 100% again, then you gotta pay up out of pocket. Since medical school is basically free, Austria has 3x the doctors per capita than the US, yet waiting times for specialists or some procedures are far longer. Why is that, you ask? Because most doctors here don't like being burned out in the understaffed public system, so once they served their "minimum sentence" in the public system to cover their "debt" for their public education, they go into private practice, which means that despite having 3x the doctors than the US, the public system is in a perpetual shortage of personnel. The state just doesn't have enough money to pay for every heath issue for everyone, but only the gravest of heath issues, and with our ageing population and stagnating economy, the situation is getting worse by the year. I heard Sweden, Finland and other rich EU countries have similar issues in their public system.
  - legitster 5y ago
    This is a good reminder that people in the US have such a myopic view of our own issues. https://twitter.com/BadEconTakes/status/1228143455399858176 https://twitter.com/BadEconTakes/status/1228143455399858176 A better way to understand our problems is that our medicaid and medicare programs are the most generous in the world - so much so that extending it universally is so friggin expensive.
mirntyfirty 5y ago
Decent insurance generally requires the purchaser to have either high premium or high deductible.
ryandrake 5y ago
Even with decent insurance, a chronic heath issue can easily result in bankruptcy or having to live paycheck to paycheck, especially if you trip up on any of the landmines like going "out of network" or having a procedure that your insurance decides they don't want to pay for. The system is set up to extract the maximum amount of money from the patient they think they can get away with. And don't even get me started on end-of-life care which is undeniably set up specifically to soak whatever savings the elderly have set aside. I think some people, maybe who are generally healthy and don't have to deal with continuously fighting with their health insurance company and hospitals, think that having health insurance is like a magical talisman that makes all your bills disappear.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- giantg2 5y ago
  I'm aware of the BS they pull. I've spend numerous hours on the phone this week trying to get a prescription filled. I have to pay out of pocket, but they aren't able to submit the claim for it to count towards my deductible. Why? Because they decided to designate a generic medication as a name brand. So even though it was 100% covered last year, now I have to pay 100% ($175/month) until the deductible is hit. I'm also forced to use s specific chain. But they couldn't file the claim toward my deductible because the software system at the chain wouldn't allow for it to be submitted as a brand name (because it's truly a generic). So this whole fiasco is because they decide to designate a generic as a name brand just so they can charge us more, and the geniuses making this change didn't even check to see if their system could handle that new business process.