4 ms·
If you find out you have cancer or kidney failure or whatever, you may not be able to enroll immediately depending on "open enrollment periods". (If you can mov
by mattchew 13y ago
If you find out you have cancer or kidney failure or whatever, you may not be able to enroll immediately depending on "open enrollment periods". (If you can move to another state that might count as a "qualifying event" and let you enroll faster.)
I do think people in the USA are overwrought about going without health insurance. It's a risk, but so is driving a car. If you do end up with a big medical bill, medical debt is (at least in my experience) more manageable that other kinds of debt.
- afterburner 13y agoThis sounds insane. Medical bills can go into the millions, and typically hundreds of thousands, if you get a serious condition.
- mattchew 13y agoMedical bills can go into the millions, but this is very rare. I quite doubt hundreds of thousands is something that could reasonably be described as typical. I had surgery with anesthesia (kidney stones) for less than $10K. I might be wrong--but I'd want to see data based on actual people actually treated.
- afterburner 13y agoWell it's called insurance for a reason. For a healthy person under 40 or so, you're paying to insure against rare events that would be very expensive. What if you get cancer, or a serious bone fracture requiring steel implants or leg braces, or any number of other serious conditions? Insuring against rare but disastrous financial burdens is the whole point at that level.
- FireBeyond 13y agoI had a kidney stone too (age 35, 190lb) this year in July. All said and done, my medical bills would have hit $54,000.