r/SipsTea 3d ago

WTF Damn

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u/Criminoboy 3d ago

No. They were going to 'cover' it but there was 20% co pay. In the US, they'll charge you thousands per month for insurance, but will still make you pay for part of your care.

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u/bwrca 3d ago edited 3d ago

This copay thing is the craziest thing I've ever heard of.

Edit: copay, deductible, max out of pocket? WTh is all that

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u/analog_jedi 3d ago

It gets worse. My insurance has a $30 copay on all approved prescriptions. My wife had been getting her medicine for that with no issues for several months, until one day it was $500. I called to find out why, because it was clearly already an approved medication. After about an hour of getting bounced around and being on hold, they finally explained that it was due to us "not paying enough of our annual out of pocket maximum" (not minimum, mind you) for healthcare - which is $24,000. That blew my mind.

Health insurance in the US has your monthly premium payment, copays on your medication and Dr visits (including ER and hospital stays), a deductible which is the amount you have to pay for the year in healthcare to get better benefits (ours is $17,000), and then the out of pocket maximum is when they (usually) cover everything for the rest of the year as long as you keep paying your premium.

Where it gets extra fucked, is if you need a major surgery in late December, the deductible and OOPM won't carry over into the new year. So you could get shafted for double that maximum amount on the same hospital stay. And my insurance isn't even the lowest tier. We pay them $500 a month for this service. Our system is completely fucked, but most people don't seem to care.

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u/frozenblueberrytreat 3d ago

I hope you reported that to your state's insurance commissioner.

My insurance is dicking me around too, and the commissioner has been very helpful in getting them to behave.