5 ms·
Plus he has the shittiest $82 health insurance plan he could find, and he doesn't calculate the costs of what will happen if he gets sick. A bigger issue with
by dgallagher 15y ago
Plus he has the shittiest $82 health insurance plan he could find, and he doesn't calculate the costs of what will happen if he gets sick.
A bigger issue with the cheap health plans is they tend to have a very high deductible, usually in the $2000 - $3000 range (his is $3500! http://earlyretirementextreme.com/my-hdhp-hsa-and-some-comments-on-health-care.html http://earlyretirementextreme.com/my-hdhp-hsa-and-some-comme...). If you end up in the E.R. once for anything, like a fever, you have to pay that entire deductible. For some, a single blood test will trigger it too.
Granted you typically only have to pay it once per year max (meaning you won't pay it for subsequent E.R. visits in the current coverage period), but it's a heavy penalty none-the-less.
- rick888 15y agoYes, but you won't go bankrupt like so many people claim you will without health insurance. Why don't more people get this $80 plan?
- rorrr 15y agoBecause you will go bankrupt if something serious happens while on this plan. Go see the details of his coverage, I bet it only covers basic things, and 50% of hospitalization drugs, and some crazy deductible. So if he gets cancer or heart disease (most common serious illnesses), he is fucked, and will be fucked every year, if he can still afford that insurance after the first year.
- rick888 15y ago"So if he gets cancer or heart disease (most common serious illnesses), he is fucked, and will be fucked every year, if he can still afford that insurance after the first year." I already looked. $3000 deductible, no lifetime limits, and it covers major surgery, doctor visits are $40. If you want prescription coverage, there are plans less than $200 (in the $190 range) that cover 80% of prescriptions. Cable costs this much. I'm not saying this guy should pay for this, but many people that claim they will go bankrupt can easily get a plan like this and not.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- rorrr 15y agoI didn't see any plans like that. What's the exact name? If you're hospitalized, hist $40 doctor visit is every time doctor checks on him for 10 seconds. (That's true of any plan though.) If here were a magical $90 plan that covers everything (or almost everything), nobody would pay for $1000 ones.
- msbarnett 15y agoWell, the "no lifetime limits" is thanks to the legislative healthcare reforms that were driven by a need to reduce the number of medical bankruptcies, so obviously that's a good step towards making healthcare more affordable to people who previously would have been driven into bankruptcy. But a $3000 yearly deductible is still likely to be utterly unaffordable to a significant portion of the uninsured, and it would be surprising if they weren't subject to copays as well.
- phamilton 15y agoRead his post about HSA and how it plays into his retirement. Most high deductible plans have full coverage ( 100% ) when the deductible is reached. Worst case scenario it costs him $4000 ($3000 of which is pre tax) a year. Thats ~300/month. Best case he doesn't visit the doctor once and it cost him $1000 and he puts $3000 into his rainy day / retirement account. You need to have $3000 available day one of each year to do this, but it makes a lot more economic sense.
- msbarnett 15y agoI'm not talking about him, I'm talking about why these $85/month plans aren't the blanket answer to the question of solving medical bankruptcies among the uninsured.
- rorrr 15y agoBecause most people get denied. $85 is only for healthy and relatively young, no pre-existing conditions.
- rdouble 15y agoA lot of people do get that plan. And a lot of people get denied that plan.
- joezydeco 15y agoSome people get married and start families. There's no way this plan costs $80 for anyone other than an under-40 single healthy nonsmoker. Add kids and a pregnant wife and see where it goes.
- philwelch 15y agoI've never seen a $3000 blood test. A family member got an exceptionally rare blood test this summer though; I'll try and look through his paperwork, but I'd be shocked to hear even that test cost so much.
- jergason 15y agoIt is actually really difficult to find out how much stuff costs at a hospital. That is one of my main complaints about the healthcare system. It is wasteful because the hospital environment makes you forget that things cost money, and that some tests have a very low probability of doing anything other than costing you money (not saying that was the case with your family member, just in general). Hospitals really mess with people's cost-benefit analysis, which isn't normally too good to begin with. I was with someone in the hospital a few months ago, and we got the strangest looks when we tried to find out how much a test would cost. Ultimately we decided not to do the test, which was a long shot to find anything for a problem that wasn't very serious, and save a bunch of money. I wish there were some way to inject some more rationality into healthcare to get around the mindset of always doing everything possible, no matter the costs and possible benefits of treatments or tests.
- philwelch 15y agoIn this case the exceptionally rare blood test was actually the crux of solving a major, chronic condition. That wasn't obvious until after the fact though.
- JoshTriplett 15y agoWhile I do understand your arguments about rationality, I'd also point out that the prices cited by hospitals have very little relationship to reality and costs. Quite a few tests become far more rational when looking at cost rather than price. (Not intended as an argument for any particular structure of healthcare, just an observation.)
- dugmartin 15y agoHis plan must be subsidized by the state - I have a very similar plan (with an even higher deductible) for myself and my family and it costs $950 a month.
- erejacob 15y agoI haven't seen any indications anywhere that California provides funds to my insurance company. However, plans do cost different amounts in different states.
- Game_Ender 15y agoYou are healthy and don't have any dependents. I don't think you could take care of the general population on $1100 per person per year, even if you cover the low cost stuff. My rough calculations show we spend about $7500 person/year right now. Obviously we have lots of cost issues and such, but even with efficiency savings, someone has to be making the difference up.