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In the US the insurance companies also negotiate the costs with various heath care providers. It's possible to pay 6,000$ / year in premiums, never hit your de
by onemoreact 15y ago
In the US the insurance companies also negotiate the costs with various heath care providers. It's possible to pay 6,000$ / year in premiums, never hit your deductible so the insurance company does not pay anything out of pocket and still save money.
- bunderbunder 15y agoLast time I saw a hard figure on it, which was admittedly a long time ago, was while I was working at an immediate care clinic. Uninsured folks were getting billed roughly 170% what insured folks were thanks to these negotiated rates.
- tptacek 15y agoAs someone who has paid out-of-pocket for an MRI (it needed to get done ASAP for logistical reasons and there was a bookkeeping screwup with my insurance): the markup for out-of-coverage services can be way way more than 170%.
- anarchotroll 15y agoThat's cause most of the people are insured and there is no pressure for lowering rates for the uninsured.
- tptacek 15y agoVirtually everyone is insured as a side effect of being an employee at a company that provides access to a group health insurance plan as a benefit. This has the side effect of coupling people's jobs to their health insurance, which drastically reduces labor mobility.
- bunderbunder 15y ago83% is certainly a large majority, but it is not "virtually everyone".
- tptacek 15y agoThe remainder in this statistic are covered by what? Medicare/medicaid? Private insurance? Co-op plans? Nothing at all?
- bunderbunder 15y ago17% have no coverage at all. 56% get it from their employer, and 8% buy their own private insurance. Source: US Census Bureau, 2009 figures http://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/p60-238.pdf http://www.census.gov/prod/2010pubs/p60-238.pdf (Starting on page 22)
- anarchotroll 15y agoHow many of those 17% are illegal immigrants? Do you have that data?
- onemoreact 15y ago17% of 300 million = 50 million. There are ~10-12 million illegal immigrants so up to 20%.