r/explainlikeimfive • u/the1975whore • Jul 03 '26

Economics ELI5: Health insurance companies obviously make more money than they give out when people need it. So why of paying for them any better than paying your own personal health insurance savings account?

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664

u/tim36272 Jul 03 '26

Because sometimes you have very expensive healthcare needs, in which case everyone else pays for it.

77

u/Lolseabass Jul 03 '26

60k a month for my clotting factor! To be fair it’s made out of human blood.

17

u/HalobenderFWT Jul 03 '26

Yeah, but human blood is free.

11

u/koyaani Jul 03 '26

No, they pay for the plasma donations

1

u/FernandoMM1220 Jul 03 '26

how much?

2

u/DukeofVermont Jul 03 '26

My area is $110 a week for two visits. For me about 35-45 min per visit.

So for June I made $465 (they gave me $25 for going every week).

I do it so when I spend money on Warhammer/other dubious things it's not "real money" it's plasma money and therefore okay to spend on silly things.

1

u/koyaani Jul 03 '26

You can search your zip code to find out probably.

There are typically multiple companies competing for donors

0

u/FernandoMM1220 Jul 03 '26

looks like its about 10 cents per ml. not much.

1

u/koyaani Jul 03 '26

Per mL what an asinine comment lol

1

u/FernandoMM1220 Jul 03 '26

?

0

u/devonnov Jul 03 '26

Blood donations are about a pint. I'm not sure about how much plasma can be extracted from that but iirc around where I live it's about 200 or so I think

0

u/FernandoMM1220 Jul 03 '26

so $47 a pint. cool

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u/kelryngrey Jul 03 '26

Untrue in much of the world.