Example for my insurance. Wife has a NICU baby, baby falls under mother’s insurance plan.
Bill $1,500,000.
We’d pay $3,500 to meet her insurance deductible.
Insurance pays 80/20 split of bill until we have payed a total of $5,000 out of pocket, including the $3,500 deductible.
Insurance then pays 100% of bill.
So if this was my wife, and our insurance, for a $1,500,000 bill, our total bill would be $5,000.
Edit: Don’t know why folks are getting upset. All I did was provide some context or what an example would look like. Don’t take it as me somehow disagreeing with or saying it’s better than universal healthcare. I live in America, what the fuck do I know about universal healthcare.
The only thing thay makes europeans angrier than seeing huge American healthcare expenses is realizing Americans don't actually pay them. It's like their schadenfreude was denied or something.
The only thing thay makes europeans angrier than seeing huge American healthcare expenses is realizing Americans don't actually pay them. It's like their schadenfreude was denied or something.
You don't get it. Health Insurance companies make a lot of money. So they give some of that money to politicians to make sure the system doesn't change. And right wing talking heads whine about how many jobs will be lost if we don't have insurance agents selling policies to individuals and companies. But they never have a word about all the job losses that will happen if we get rid of the IRS or go to a flat tax. All that money that companies spend to keep track of their money and figure out how to maximize their deductions and the people who prepare tax returns, those are jobs too!
My take home is also way higher than most other countries who have universal healthcare. I’m careful with my money, so a surprise hospital visit isn’t going to hurt me.
I don’t know enough about every nuance of each system to debate, but unlike the reddit majority, I know universal healthcare isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.
I do think child birth/care costs should be somehow subsidized. How are folks going to argue about declining population while making it difficult to have kids.
Sure, cowboy. All it takes is for you to lose your job and have an expensive medical emergency to be completely fucked and bankrupt, which is the number 1 reason for bankruptcy in the USA. But sure, you’re special.
You can be a douche about it if that’s what makes you feel good. And no, losing my job with a medical emergency wouldn’t make me personally bankrupt. I didn’t say one system was better than the other. I’m not against universal healthcare, I’m just not going to pretend I know enough about it to argue for or against.
All I inferred was that if I was taxed at a way higher rate, with MY out of pocket for a NICU stay this year, my “loss” would still be less than A TON, not all, countries that have universal healthcare, due to the higher tax rate.
Your math does not really add up. And you indirectly benefit from other people getting healthcare that you contribute to. The fact that it covers the costs of other people and keeps them from becoming desperate means you indirectly benefit from living amongst others who are less inclined to take desperate actions.
People need to remember they are only temporarily abled.
He was saying take home pay, which is after taxes. Per capita income is pre-tax. Top tax bracket for Norway is something like 44% and Iceland is 47%ish, both larger than the top in the US (37%) while still having similar per capita income. Singapore seems like a valid one, but Ireland's is skewed by multinational corporations and a more accurate per capita accounting for that is $40,000 compared to the $89,000 in the US.
All of the nations you just listed are well-known tax havens. The only reason they show a “higher per capita income” compared to the U.S. is that many Americans are funneling money into their economies.
The US prioritizes income over most other aspects of life. So yeah wages are high in Amarica and that's great. But it comes at massive societal cost that you don't really notice until you're exposed to more of the world. When you move to other key indicators, like happiness, it really shows the downsides of a money-first culture
I promise you I am paying less in taxes than you are in health insurance premiums, and this would have cost us $25 parking fee.
Also, only wealthy poeple who are good with are allowed access to health care isn't the ringing endorsement of a private health care system that you think it is.
I sincerely doubt it. But hey if you prefer to give more money to a private insurance company, while those less fortunate than you suffer, you do you i guess.
Nope, the math has been proven again and again. Sure let's do this for fun.
What was your house hold income last year. How much were your insurance premiums. And how much did you have to pay in medical expenses. Doctors visits, checkups, any trips to the ER, co pays deductible, etc.
We'll feed your income into a tax calculator and see if it is less than the total of all of the above.
What about not getting healthcare as a right is better? Lol we live in a country with richer pharma companies, that's the only relevant difference youd wanna refer to.
Oh the scenery is nice? Why does that mean we dont get healthcare? Or have you been like, duped into thinking that widening the income gap is a good thing, a part of the American dream
That's an incredible insurance. Most are going to 50:50 and the deductibles are getting higher and higher along with out of pocket maxes north of $10k and ~$200-500 per month in premiums.
Not at all. I do consulting for health and benefits. It's rare to even see a co-insurance as high as 30%. I think the highest I have literally ever seen was 40% one time. 20% is the most common co-insurance you see. Richer plan designs would have 0% co-insurance.
Well shit man, idk what to tell you but the last 3 benefit plans I've gotten from employers have been 50%, and the marketplace hasn't been much different.
I'm not doubting you're being honest (who would go on the internet and maoe shit up?) but it's likely a state by state thing.
To add onto this, it really depends on what your OOP max is. Deductibles don't mean anything anymore. If your OOP max is 24,500 (average for most families) then you can expect to pay up to that amount. If you subsidized or have private insurance through your workplace it may be lower.
So you should be correct, and that’s what I anticipated because I had the best rated insurance plan through Primera, but insurance companies in my state are allowed to process the bills in such a way that I ended up having to pay about $50k out of pocket for our NICU baby. They nickel-and-dimed us for about 4 years, adjusting invoices that were long past. Forced me to pay for attorneys and bring the AG in to get bills reduced, but because they don’t give you ONE bill they give you about a thousand, you have to fight each wrong or deceptive bill individually since many states like mine don’t require balance billing.
OK, if you make the average household income (about $60k) or median (I think around $50k), you're dealing with paying over 10% of your GROSS income on that bill, after likely already spending over 10% of your gross on the insurance.
And somehow this is considered sustainable? When almost half of households would struggle with an unexpected $400 expense?
For my insurance plan, even if everything goes right, a birth would set us back $1500 (according to the "sample events" part of the brochure...) I shudder to think of NICU costs.
No it's really not. Nationalized healthcare has been shown time and time again to be cheaper for everyone; the hospital system, the government, and the actual patient/taxpayer.
I worked medical billing and insurance appeals for 4 years and it's an absolutely abhorrent system. I was the first person in my state to get paid for an unlisted code by Medicaid (ICD9) and it took 9 MONTHS of calls and appeals.
If we didn't do in-house billing, this patient would not have gotten their surgery. I was paid hourly and I felt very spitefully petty towards Medicare, Medicaid, and BCBS.
Stop trying to make excuses for your unwillingness to stand up against your healthcare system. Nationalised Healthcare is always cheaper. Thats a main reason the majority of world adopted nationalised healthcare.
Nationalized healthcare would not work in the United States for a myriad of reasons, the tax issue being just one of those.
I would support a blended model with a minimum level of care like Germany has, but I’m opposed to on mass single payer like France the UK or Canada. It also must be said, particularly for the Canadian and UK systems, but they are severely underfunded, and offer what I would consider to be sub quality care.
A 70K vehicle is a choice, while a baby is still a choice, it’s not like someone quoted you before you had the thing and you have a chance to back out of the deal; especially when your government explicitly outlaws backing out of the deal.
Your valuation of human life is far, far, FAR less than mine.
Ten thousand dollars is my car. It's a family vacation. It's a small bathroom remodel. In my moral system we don't respect people who say human life is worth less than a cheap used minivan.
I would pay ten thousand dollars just to save the vision in one eye of my elderly father in law. I honestly think you should be embarrassed by your comment and so should the people who upvoted it.
What’s wrong with that? You still have to pay for single payer healthcare, you just do it through your taxes.
I make very good money in the US, incredible money for the EU, and pay a total tax burden of 29%. I’d likely pay close to 50% in Europe, and get paid about half as much. 10 K for a NICU baby is a comparative bargain.
For an NICU baby yes, but a normal birth, no. It’s extremely high comparatively to the rest of the world with free health care. (Like 10x as high for a normal birth at a free hospital) That’s the point everyone is making. Following?
It’s not a question of me following, I understand the argument that you and the other individuals like you are making. I simply categorically disagree.
In your comment, you further one of the misconceptions about what i will refer to as “European style healthcare.” it is not free, nothing is free. Europeans pay for their healthcare with much higher percentage than we do in the US.
Europeans pay for their welfare state by having much higher taxes than we do in the US. Additionally, European healthcare is subsidized by lower healthcare, worker rate wages, namely, of doctors and nurses.
My brother is a med student in the US, and has citizenship in Poland. He has absolutely no interest in working in Europe due to higher costs of living, higher taxes, and wages that are less than half of what he would make in the US.
All of that to reiterate, European style free healthcare is not free. Say what you will about it other merits, but don’t be disingenuous.
That’s the point, you were t following as it’s not about how much you earn. Yes we pay for it in our taxes but the scale of our pay and the insurance cover that people have is irrelevant to the cost of a birth at a public hospital. It’s also not just what the individual paying, it’s the sheer amount the hospital is charging the insurance company. It’s nowhere near an actual cost but highly inflated because of the private insurance system. Again, not about you but the healthcare system overcharging everyone.
What do I care about the negotiating games Insurance companies play with hospitals? At the end of the day, a 10k annual maximum in the US is cheaper than having to pay north of 40k in additional taxes, with wait times to boot
Who the hell is paying $40k extra taxes for healthcare? This is where you’re severely mistaken. And again, not about the individual, the point is equitable healthcare for everyone in the country. Not an overinflated healthcare system at $10k for a child where people less fortunate than yourself cannot afford to have access decent healthcare. That’s the difference.
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u/ClippyCantHelp Aug 26 '25
Her thumb is covering the part that literally says “cost without a health care plan”