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With current discussions of affordable health insurance for all using Massachusetts as a guideline, if you had to pay health insurance on your own, what monthly $ amount would be reasonable? If you already pay on your own and the bill was adjusted, what would a reasonable amount be for you?
Bonus question: if the monthly $$ was more than you could handle, what would you do to try to afford it?
With current discussions of affordable health insurance for all using Massachusetts as a guideline, if you had to pay health insurance on your own, what monthly $ amount would be reasonable? If you already pay on your own and the bill was adjusted, what would a reasonable amount be for you?
Bonus question: if the monthly $$ was more than you could handle, what would you do to try to afford it?
Depends on the plan.
As a guideline we need to keep in mind there's no such thing as a free lunch. This appears to come as a shock to many but it's true.
To keep costs down a plan needs to have high deductibles or people couldn't afford it.
$2,500 single/$5,000 family deductible (maximum out of pocket) sounds reasonable.
$400 per month for single $800 per month for family sounds reasonable.
I am handling $950 per month now and it is my largest single monthly expense with the exception of income tax.
What many people don't understand is the wide variation in costs and wages in different areas of the country. Price an apartment in Taxachusetts, say in the Boston area. If you find one suitable for a family, you might be paying $1,200 or more. A farmhouse near us rents for $230/mo.. Wages are commensurate.
$400/mo for insurance in Boston might be considered reasonable. Around here it wouldn't fly.
When you talk about a high deductible, you are really talking about limiting insurance to nothing but big-ticket and catastrophic. Who needs that? Americans need basic health maintenance insurance. Why would anyone waht to pay $5,000 a year for insurance, which doesn't cover anything until they pay the full bill out of their pocket up to another $5,000? What's the good of that?
I would propose a two-tier system. Tier one would be completely free, paid entirely by a single payer, up to a lifetime cap which could be, say, $100,000. Anybody who wanted to have more catastrophic coverage than that could do what they are doing now---buy it at the going rate from the private sector. Lower income people unwilling to pay the high price of more complete coverage could just cross their fingers and hope their 100K gets them through their normal lifetime.
Our present approach is exactly the opposite. Everyday medical costs for health maintenance, to hell with you, let them gouge you. Liver transplant, well, don't worry, that will be taken care of. It's things that you happlily blow off as deductibles, which many people can't afford out of pocket, that reflect our health as a nation.
The public mandate for general health care is not one that keeps terminal patients alive for a few more days. It is one that keeps us all generally healthy, with prescriptions for antibiotics and lab tests for troublesome diagnoses. It's at that front end where we are all obliged to keep out entire society healthy and well, for our own collective good.
I would propose a two-tier system. Tier one would be completely free, paid entirely by a single payer, up to a lifetime cap which could be, say, $100,000. Anybody who wanted to have more catastrophic coverage than that could do what they are doing now---buy it at the going rate from the private sector. Lower income people unwilling to pay the high price of more complete coverage could just cross their fingers and hope their 100K gets them through their normal lifetime.
I wonder something though, when the lifetime CAP has been reached what happens then? Especially if it's as low as $100,000 (my broken ankle topped $50,000). I suspect they will just become the "new" uninsured and we will face the same problems we are facing now since we still won't want to be turning people away and leaving them to go without medical care just because they can't afford it. The big problem with any health care plan is that we as a society, as human beings, will never be able to say "that's it...no more medicine for you!". And that is why something like national health programs seem to be the only realistic end result.
I wonder something though, when the lifetime CAP has been reached what happens then? Especially if it's as low as $100,000 (my broken ankle topped $50,000). I suspect they will just become the "new" uninsured and we will face the same problems we are facing now since we still won't want to be turning people away and leaving them to go without medical care just because they can't afford it. The big problem with any health care plan is that we as a society, as human beings, will never be able to say "that's it...no more medicine for you!". And that is why something like national health programs seem to be the only realistic end result.
The short answer is that we need to review our expectation that there is an infinite amount of money and medical services available to guarantee that every person will live to be 100 without a moment's discomfort.
What do we do when there are some people who cannot afford a sailboat? They buck up and accept the fact that the lives of the rich are not the same as the lives of the poor. We must choose to accept or reject the fact that some people have a greater entitlement to health care than others. If we accept it, it is my view that there is some public interest in small health issues of everybody, and let the wealthy few buy their transplants, that's not a public health issue.. But if we reject it, then we have already philosophically committed ourselves to a concept of universal care for everybody, without regard to ability to pay.
As for your 50K ankle, a universal basic health care system would preclude those kinds of fees. The same procedure in Canada would probably have resulted in maybe 5K or 10K actually paid to health care providers, and in Mexico, maybe one thousand. I'll bet that, even though you saw an invoice for 50K, the actual amount of money that changed hands was less than half, maybe only a quarter of that. Unless you were uninsured, in which case they socked you for every penny and sued you into bankruptcy and made you put a jar on the counter at the gas station.
I just got my bill the other day for a medical service. Total bill, $1120. Medicare paid $171, I paid $43, and the other $905 just vanished into thin air. If they would accept $215 instead of $1120, nobody would need insurance.
I don't think we could ever afford to dish out more than a couple hundred a month in premiums. When the time comes to "retire" I will most likely need to find a parttime job to help pay for it.
It all depends on what it covers.
X amount of month buys different coverage depending on the company.
I can pay $120 a month to Blue Cross and have them cover different things than with QualChoice.
I think the co-pays for my doctors visits are reasonable: $20. Even $40 wouldn't be so bad.
The big thing is asking people what they want insurance to cover.
Some may not want mental health coverage, some may want more coverage for prescriptions.
I wouldn't mind a $5,000 deductible. At this point in my life, I couldn't afford something like that but later on when I'm older, sure, why not?
I think around $500 a month for my girlfriend and I wouldn't be bad.
I want coverage for visits with a counselor and brand-name prescriptions covered (if my doctor deems them necessary) because I can handle the generic ones. This is just what comes to mind.
I would rather just have a single-payer system and not have to worry if some health insurance exec wants to get me off his rolls if I come down with cancer or some other expensive medical condition or whatever.
[quote=Robineli;11038246]The short answer is that we need to review our expectation that there is an infinite amount of money and medical services available to guarantee that every person will live to be 100 without a moment's discomfort.
What do we do when there are some people who cannot afford a sailboat? They buck up and accept the fact that the lives of the rich are not the same as the lives of the poor. We must choose to accept or reject the fact that some people have a greater entitlement to health care than others. If we accept it, it is my view that there is some public interest in small health issues of everybody, and let the wealthy few buy their transplants, that's not a public health issue.. But if we reject it, then we have already philosophically committed ourselves to a concept of universal care for everybody, without regard to ability to pay.
As for your 50K ankle, a universal basic health care system would preclude those kinds of fees. The same procedure in Canada would probably have resulted in maybe 5K or 10K actually paid to health care providers, and in Mexico, maybe one thousand. I'll bet that, even though you saw an invoice for 50K, the actual amount of money that changed hands was less than half, maybe only a quarter of that. Unless you were uninsured, in which case they socked you for every penny and sued you into bankruptcy and made you put a jar on the counter at the gas station.
I just got my bill the other day for a medical service. Total bill, $1120. Medicare paid $171, I paid $43, and the other $905 just vanished into thin air. If they would accept $215 instead of $1120, nobody would need insurance./QUOTE]
SO far I've paid between $75(employer) and $150. I'm single, paying $150 a month now. I really don't pay for it for any other reason than the off chance I have to go to the emergency room and I get stuck with a $50,000 bill. I don't even see the point of using it for anything else other than catastrophic care. What do I need insurance for to pay $50 for a physical every 2-3 years. I suppose this will prolly change as I get older.
The short answer is that we need to review our expectation that there is an infinite amount of money and medical services available to guarantee that every person will live to be 100 without a moment's discomfort.
What do we do when there are some people who cannot afford a sailboat? They buck up and accept the fact that the lives of the rich are not the same as the lives of the poor. We must choose to accept or reject the fact that some people have a greater entitlement to health care than others. If we accept it, it is my view that there is some public interest in small health issues of everybody, and let the wealthy few buy their transplants, that's not a public health issue.. But if we reject it, then we have already philosophically committed ourselves to a concept of universal care for everybody, without regard to ability to pay.
As for your 50K ankle, a universal basic health care system would preclude those kinds of fees. The same procedure in Canada would probably have resulted in maybe 5K or 10K actually paid to health care providers, and in Mexico, maybe one thousand. I'll bet that, even though you saw an invoice for 50K, the actual amount of money that changed hands was less than half, maybe only a quarter of that. Unless you were uninsured, in which case they socked you for every penny and sued you into bankruptcy and made you put a jar on the counter at the gas station.
I just got my bill the other day for a medical service. Total bill, $1120. Medicare paid $171, I paid $43, and the other $905 just vanished into thin air. If they would accept $215 instead of $1120, nobody would need insurance.
The ankle was more about the surgeries required to fix it, which is why it was so $$, but you are right, I did see "contracted amounts" on my insurance invoice that were less than the actual charges. By how much I don't know.
It's one thing to say you can't have a sailboat, it's another to say you can't have chemo or that operation that can save your life. I know there isn't a bottomless pit of money to treat everyone for everything, but it's just distasteful to think that your life depends on your economic situation.
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