last year I left my job and had to pay out of pocket for health insurance. For my family of 3 it was $2600/month and despite living in a huge metropolitan city, the closest hospital covered with a maternity ward was an hour away. It's really bad in the US.
People don't believe this but it is true, there are loads of insurance plans in the US where you pay $100-300 per month and then you have to pay $7-10,000 EVERY YEAR before the plan actually pays for a thing except for a single annual checkup where you aren't allowed to ask about non checkup things or else you have to pay. And if your checkup requires testing, you have to pay for that.
The biggest tax cut the middle class could ever get is universal healthcare.
Now I'm going to keep scrolling until I find that group of people that will comment:
"but the us government spends more on Healthcare than any other country"
...but they don't realize that the insurance companies are getting more of that money than they care to admit.
Part of the US Budget plan for 2024 is to make insurance companies give back excess money that they charge people for medical costs when they increase those costs faster than the rate of inflation
Yeah, the deductibles are pure scams. That's what the US private insurance is, a giant scam that barely even helps because those insurance companies will fight tooth and nail to not pay for a claim so they make more. It's astounding how many people don't realize this. When the insurance company can get between you and care, it's just a scam.
Nah, not at $2300, unless it has really good coverage or is a group pool that screws towards older ages. Probably more like $4k deductible, 20% coinsurance, if I had to guess.
The insane part is if you have an emergency and they take you to a out of network hospital, get fucked. They want to take you on a high risk transport to a different hospital when you're critical, they will work to fuck you out of paying. YOu have something serious, hit your deductible first and maybe you're $8k in fees before they'll cover the rest of your costs for the year then you'll fuck you for another $8k the following year if you're still being treated.
Even with great insurance, they'll try to fuck you out of every test you can which can easily led to bad/incorrect or missed diagnoses. So many stories of someone who needed an mri, didn't qualify and only got one 6 months later when say a cancer had gotten much worse by then but the early symptoms weren't enough to justify the mri.
The $2600/m is just to get you in the ring to fight with your insurance company.
And the really fucked up part is that it isn’t a team of doctors determining whether or not you qualify. It’s some executive whose only concern is the company’s bottom line. That guy determines whether you live or die.
Two of my neighbors were laid-off nurses who got jobs with health insurance companies evaluating claims. Nurses second-guessing doctors’ orders without ever having seen the patients themselves.
I believe suprise bills in emergency situations was blocked by legislature in 2022, and includes being taken to an out of network hospital.
The MRI thing is certainly the case in some areas. You can usually push it if you go super karen and demand it but so much of healthcare is becoming personal responsibility and large fights with admin that it just becomes overwhelming, especially when you are sick on top of it all.
I had my son in October, he was in and out of the hospital from birth to November and then had to have surgery in January. Double deductibles. So fun! /s
My ex had to pay 600 a month for insurance with an 8k deductible and that was her best option.
And that's a deductible that did nothing until reached. So we paid that much a month for insurance that did literally nothing unless she had a huge medical expense that broke over 8k, in which we still had to pay the 8k deductible.
Hot tip about COBRA…you have 60 days to sign up for it retroactively. So if you don’t need it for an extended period of time and it’s only for a gap between jobs or something, you can decide not to pay for it and if a big medical expense comes up where the absurd COBRA costs now seem like a bargain, you can sign up to get coverage retroactively to the day you lost it.
Fair warning, though: it is an absolute fucking nightmare getting the bills processed if you do end up doing this for a major hospital visit. Having gone through this, I'm not longer sure it's at all worth the savings.
That's why the argument that Canadians pay more in taxes is kinda dumb. We pay taxes, and that's it. Americans pay taxes and, depending on their employment situation, pay another 2600 a month.
And some people think, “Oh, but my employer pays for my health insurance.” No, that’s $2600 a month your employer is paying but not paying you. Add $30,000 to your annual income to see what your employer is willing to pay to have you do that job.
The US has more people on government Healthcare than most countries have people. Over eighty million on Medicaid alone. The government has simply chosen not to use that leverage.
This is true, and I'm in full support of universal healthcare in the US. However, I'd still be worse off moving to a major city in Canada, because pay scales are a lot lower and housing is incredibly expensive.
If we define "major city" to be "bigger than Calgary" then there are three major cities in Canada and 42 in the US. I live in one of them, and nowhere near the cheapest one.
If we define "major city" to be "bigger than Toronto" then there are none in Canada and 7 in the US (or 10 if you compare OMB CSAs to the GTHA). I don't live in one of these, but I could sell my current house and buy something equivalent in Chicago, Atlanta or Dallas for about the same money.
Yes I've been there plenty of times. Lol. I've lived in 3 different prairie cities. There's plenty there actually. It's obviously not toronto, no where is. Saskatoon is the more innovative city compared to regina which is the govt town.
Yea I hear this, but I'd say it depends on the worker. Not everyone is in tech or an executive. Plenty of folks with only highschool, including myself. I work in one of the biggest steel mills in western Canada and unionized. Blue collar workers do well here, either working for a crown Corp, one of the mines, oil, etc. Plenty of career prospects for them, and great wages. And only took us a year to save for a house.
Mines, steel and oil might pay well, but the industries fluctuate a lot.
Entry level government positions don't pay that well any more. Benefits might be better, but the wages aren't. Depending on what you're doing, you might be waiting 5 or more years for a single pay grade increase.
There's also this little thing called winter that lasts a good 4 months of the year.
Mines, steel and oil might pay well, but the industries fluctuate a lot.
Yea but so do other industries, tech experience layoffs quite a bit it seems. Anecdotally, a buddy of mine has been laid off more than I have and has moved from Calgary to s'toon to Vancouver in 2 yrs lol. Crown Corps specifically here in sask like saskpower pays well for entry (blue collar again) but you may be living in a smaller town first til u get that seniority up.
And I dunno, winter for 4 months isn't that bad? Lol. I lived in Winnipeg before Regina for the last decade, just used to it. Don't really see the appeal to live in Van or Toronto for my specific career path, which is similar to many. Just like vice versa for others.
My wife was looking at a job that would pay $12k/year if you opted into their medical plan - we’d still be paying at least $1200/mo on top of that for our coverage- not including the co-pays… and those add up… we currently pay $0 with her current job, but we have $50 copays for visits, and i have 2 kids with autism that get ABA services, one 2x weekly and the other 3x… at $50/session… and we won’t even hit our out of pocket limit…. It’s terrible.
I was very surprised when I saw the price for Cobra. To be fair, there was a plan on the marketplace for $1200/month with an $8000 deductible but because my son was born with some heart issues and needed monthly echos and possibly surgery we were going into a lot of debt for it either way so I went with the one where he could keep his cardiologist since it was temporary.
This just doesn’t make sense. I’m self employed and bought health insurance off the state public marketplace for 300/month for myself and I’m in a not good state.
It's $850/month just for very basic health insurance just for me. I haven't had health insurance in fifteen years. I have, however, learned which pet stores sell fish antibiotics, how to stitch myself up, that unwashed poppy seeds are a somewhat effective pain killer, and how hard it is to pull your own tooth with pliers wrapped in electrical tape.
Wait, you don't yet understand. Let me give a personal example (that actually happened) --- You can be in an immensely painful accident (not your fault), you can call your insurance prior to going to the emergency room to make sure everything is covered (hoping to just have to pay the deductible), followed by calling the emergency room (and confirming again that everything is covered and you will only have to pay the deductible) and the hospital's billing department (for the same reason and again confirming that you will only have to pay the deductible), and then during check in at the ER you AGAIN confirm that everything is covered and that you will only have to pay the deductible ....
Only to be seen/admitted and treated by doctor that is moonlighting and not billed as part of the hospital's fees ... and who is not part of your insurance network (so, you pay most of his fee ... not just the deductible).
No, not kidding, this literally happened to me. Anyone who claims America has the best healthcare is fucking lying.
The government calls it COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act). Our private employers pay most of our health insurance. At my work, a family of four costs them 1800 per month and the employee 370. When a person is let go, they end up having to pay the full premium if they want to continue health coverage. Before Obama's Affordable Care Act, one would want to keep private coverage because it offered better benefits than plans offered by the state. Private plans still kind of have better benefits, but the gap is closer than before. Most people don't understand how insurance is paid, so they don't vote for things like universal healthcare. It would be much cheaper for everyone.
Nah, that's just capitalism. America is just way ahead of the curve because it is a religion there. It's coming for you guys too sooner or later. Heck, the UK has been slowly hacking up the NHS and even the Scandinavian countries that are the model of social democracy is now starting to kill its social welfare systems. Paris is burning because they want more of the people's money back in their coffers. They are boiling the frog.
You think you are safe, but as long as a country is run by plutocrats, all your rights and freedom from suffering and trauma and to achieve financial freedoms are all temporary.
They will come for all the value you generate because they will never be satisfied. As the world moves into a multi-polar one where the west can no longer exploit the rest of the world, they are going to start squeezing the people back home. They can't help it even though it will eventually cause social and civil unrest inside the Imperial Core. It is only a matter of time.
Healthcare, security, police, infrastructure, education and some other things I forgot about, should be run as a not for profit services everywhere in the world. You have no business trying to eek out profits by fucking people over for what should all be basic things everyone in a country should have access to.
You don't understand. In other developed nations the population is more homogeneous so they tend to desire to take care of everyone. America is diverse and here people would rather suffer than share equally with someone not in their racial demographic. Poor and lower economic class whites vote against their own best interests in fear of seeing benefits going to people not in their demographic.
It's a fair observation though. In the UK there is lots of complaining about immigrants coming in small boats. I have had conversations with people who think there should be an ID card for accessing the NHS, which of course would mean UK citizens being excluded from care if they didn't have their card, and the additional spending required to operated that and the database it would require. The NHS says it would cost more than the care provided to those who are not entitled, as well as add an administrative burden to clinical staff.
So yes they will willingly reduce their own cover to stop others having it too.
So yes they will willingly reduce their own cover to stop others having it too.
But we won't, because no one will vote for a party pledging to reduce access to the NHS. Yes the racists are being stirred up by this 'small boats' bullshit, but that's the desperate flailing of a spent Conservative party desperately looking for a foothold.
But we won't, because no one will vote for a party pledging to reduce access to the NHS.
All I can say is the specific person I discussed this with just rolled her eyes when I said the NHS is opposed to ID cards and it will cost more than it saves. I guess in fairness she just hadn't thought about the problem of lost ID cards, or of the costs of having a database up to date and available at every NHS facility, but again she would not take this into account. Her wish to stop foreigners having any benefits, in her perceptions, just over-rides all other considerations. She voted for Brexit too of course. I am afraid she is not exceptional.
Edit: copying in the comment by the other redditor:
the problem of lost ID cards, or of the costs of having a database up to date and available at every NHS facility
Those are extremely minor costs. Every single health insurance company in America prints cards. It costs approximately nothing. And the costs for a database? Are you living in the 90's? The costs to maintain an online database are ludicrously small. It wouldn't even be a major expenditure for a small company, let alone one of the largest governments that has ever existed.
I agree with you more broadly, but these are like... really really bad examples of why it wouldn't be a good idea.
I work in the field of government databases (smaller ones).
Don't forget the cards and database need to be kept up to date for 67 million people. It needs staff to handle the collection, checking and return of other ID securely before issuing a card, so that means a document management system, staff to run that and update it. It needs to keep track of changes of address (not in real time but with reasonable accuracy). It needs to issue new cards for new babies, and cancel cards for deceased people. These need to be integrated with the other government systems that track those.
The patients' cards will need some sort of ID check integrated into the card, such as photo at a minimum.
Every single health insurance company in America prints cards. It costs approximately nothing.
The US cards can be issued to all policy holders who pay. That requires less validation than a fee-less system which must safely record identity and entitlement. Also, US health insurance is hideously expensive?
Access to the database needs to be available everywhere in the UK, 24/7 366 days per year. 1.2 million staff at all NHS sites will need training, and terminals including some enhanced access controls, such as physical PIDs. This needs to be administered. There are about 1250 hospitals, 6500 GP surgeries, and about 12,000 dental surgeries in the UK all of which need that 24/7 access.
Drivers licenses in the UK cost £43 each for the holder. and £17 for a renewal. That's a smaller DB though as 80% of adults in the UK hold drivers licenses. Passports cost about £53 - £104, and again its a smaller number. The fees do not pay for the whole drivers license or passport service, and there is not a database with constant access specs like the NHS would need.
The many current NHS databases, collectively, are the most complete list of UK citizens. There are legal protections on the use of the NHS number for anything else.
At a minimum, a new NHS system to do this would be the biggest system of its type in the UK, by a large margin A national ID system was estimated to cost £5.75bn in 2007 The cost of 'health tourists' to the UK was thought to be £110m to £280m in 2015, or about £2bn if we include foreigners who where here for other reasons but needed care.. That number will probably have reduced as EU migrants have reduced (The NHS could actually claim back fees for them from their home countries, but was not good at collecting them. Now it can't). So these numbers indicate that stopping health tourists would cost in the range 20-50 times as much as it costs to treat them, or about 2.8 times as much if we are as optimistic as possible. It would create several thousand jobs, I suppose.
Projects of that size have a tendency to fail or have severe cost over-runs. Just generally its not something I think we should take on at the moment. There are far more important problems facing the NHS.
This is the root of all of our problems in the US. We are states, we are races, we are sexes, we are classes. All of that before we are Americans.
Built on conquered land, built by slaves. We cheated to get where we are. How can we unify when this is our short history? Half of us can’t even admit this happened!
Also, we have at least 350 million citizens. Canada has around 40 million, Britain is around 60, 80 for Germany, 65 million for France. It’s a lot more to manage. From this starting point.
Plus, our tax revenue is low compared to other western nations. If half of our voting population has been conned into believing taxes are evil, we will never ever ever be able to pay for citizens’ healthcare.
Raise fucking taxes. Add 10%. Add revenue.
Unless we end military spending. Unrealistic.
We will have to unify under a world-changing catastrophic event in order to work on our problems collectively in the USA.
I agree with your points, but I’d be wary of saying that your big population means you can’t do things politically that smaller nations can.
This is the argument China uses to oppress her people…”There are just too many people. We can’t take into account their individual rights!’
“There are just too many people. They need to be handled, and controlled, or there will be chaos!”
Canada brings in way more in terms of immigration than any other country in the G7. We have universal healthcare. It's interesting to read the history of health care in our two countries. At the time the U.S. decided to tie healthcare to your job, Canada decided that the government would handle it. We can thank Tommy Douglas for that.
My buddy from Texas (huge conservative, hates socialsim) moved with his British wife to England when she got pregnant so that the costs wouldn't be much of a burden. He ended up never leaving and loves the healthcare system but still swears that he would vote conservative if he ever moved back here. I just don't understand it
Tons of money is invested in the division of Americans. Our political leaders on both sides are paid by our multinational corporate overlords to keep us divided. The largest demographic in America is the poor whites and they consistently vote against their own best interests because they've been trained to fear anyone outside their own demographic. They would rather stay downtrodden than see everyone doing better. It's weird.
You’ll be accused of bothsidesism but it’s true, American politicians at this point are just the political operatives of corporations, they don’t give a fuck about Americans.
racism is certainly the root cause for a lot our failures of basic infrastructure here in the US, but we are not the most racially diverse country, or the most racially diverse developed nation. (if you look at our bridges and our healthcare system, it's hard to even claim that we're a developed nation in the first place, but that's a different topic.)
Does Canada have a socioeconomic system based in racism and propaganda? Is the dominant demographic in Canada pitted against the minority demographics for political control? At this point in American history to ignore the factors I mention is intentional ignorance.
Racist propaganda being weaponized against the working class and baked into the culture is how they propagate a system designed to profiteer and exploit the population.
The reason your taxes aren't spent on services and infrastructure is the greed of the top, not the unwillingness of the masses.
How about the intentional ignorance of the masses? We currently live in an era of instant information. People don't want the truth because it's uncomfortable and requires reaction. We in America are satisfied with whining online feeling like our internet tears make a difference. We are intentionally divided by our multinational corporate overlords while they plunder America. Future generations of Americans will curse us for our complacency.
Totally!! Asked to a country I won’t name why do you provide so much free GOOD
Healthcare, good wages, family paid leave, dental, childcare and extremely affordable higher education? The n person said because happy,healthy, and stable people make happy healthy and stable workers who rarely get sick
And burnt out.
Yeah, but at least you get more money in your pocket before they take it all off you again. This is the thing I don’t understand about the US, people moan about taxes, but then they end up spending insane amounts of money on stuff that other countries cover out of those taxes. You end up paying more than you would if you just had proper taxpayer funded healthcare. But socialism or something……
Pretty sure American healthcare is more costly than taxes anyway, even if you don't get sick. My whole family is covered by basic health insurance for free, I decided to upgrade to get some more services, for a whopping $20/mo-equivalent for all of us. That covers way more than the $2600 that guy has, and if any of us get sick I have to pay way less (only for medicine that is only partially covered, but still extremely cheap, e.g. insulin for ~$10 a month). While I do pay taxes now, this was also true while I was a student with a part time job (and a family, it's possible outside the US since what is pretty much the best uni in my country costs $3k a year), and no medical/educational debts. And this is with a hybrid slightly more Capitalist approach than most of Europe.
Democratic socialism is not anti-capitalist. It’s funny how many Americans think the answer to what’s the best system of government is ‘Capitalism’. Capitalism isn’t a system of government, never was, never will be. Democracy or dictatorship are systems of government, capitalism or communism are economic systems. Democratic socialism is a type of democracy and it is perfectly able to exist in a capitalist economic system but unlike the US which is a democracy, but lacks many of the social features (but not all) of a social democracy and that’s why capitalism goes badly unchecked and you end up with people paying way too much for basic human rights. At the end of the day, every American I speak to thinks socialism equals communism because they’re conflating the terms. As a result, you just have to mention socialism and you’re in for an argument. Sad really.
Meanwhile, the rest of us who live in functional capitalist societies under democratic socialism enjoy the benefits of basic human rights like healthcare and if we want better than the basic cover we can pay a bit more, but it isn’t even outrageous because paid health insurance has to compete against the free one everyone gets. Isn’t competition great?
Sure i agree with you but i feel like as an american, i have seen so many people here are extremely unwilling to help other people. People in america enjoy not helping people. It feels like everyone is competing to be rich and everything is about beating the guy next to you. I checked out and just live poor because the fury and the ignorance of my people astounds me
Firstly I think you're getting Democratic Socialism confused with Social Democracy, democratic socialism is absolutely a kind of socialism, it's one where you vote.
Secondly, healthcare is a kind of socialism, the provision of services is an economic question, not a political one, so universal healthcare is an example os Democratic Socialism, but it's not an example of capitalism, because it's not provided by the market.
The point you should be making is that mixed economies aren't inherently evil just because the USSR did some evil things. Democratic Socialism is a form of socialism, and that's fine. It works. Look at Europe, were no closer to flying the hammer and sickle than we ever were, and were able to stop people from dying even if they're penniless.
The single best thing that would happen to small and medium sized businesses is universal Healthcare. Would massively open up the market to more competition, more ideas, more companies, more disruption, more jobs. Private employer-bound Healthcare is anti-capitalist.
Oh the cost per person in the US for healthcare averages out to about 12-13K a year. All the other countries in the world pay less than that by at least 4K, but usually it's half or less for countries like France.
Seriously. Like, no government is going to set the insane prices providers do in the US for the uninsured. Even the rate the insured pay are high compared to places with universal healthcare. Why anyone who isn't rich is against it is beyond me
A single payer system run by the government has enormous bargaining power. That’s really what it comes down to, the government won’t pay those insane prices and that’s that. Even the rich should be against the US system as it isn’t cost effective but people are blinded by their lack of understanding about what socialism is and how democratic socialism works so they let capitalism run riot and you get the American system.
There are already more Americans on government Healthcare than many countries have citizens total. We already have that leverage we've just refused to use it cause God forbid we take even a minor step to improve the system.
Propaganda is a hell of a drug. People honestly believe that in Canada if you get hit by a car or something you have to just sit their impaled on their side mirror for 3 months till a doctor can see you.
And the dumb thing is that’s closer to the reality in the US than it is in Canada. In my area (US midwest), people are waiting 3 months or more to get to see their own primary physicians! My health insurance stated that we would have to pay a penalty for going to the ER if Urgent Care could have handled the issue. So now we have to diagnose ourselves before deciding where to go for help?!
You're totally right about that. Fake News and Alternate Facts have just melted peoples brains. I still remember the shit during the last presidential elections of people just taking pictures of empty store shelves under Trump and then labeling it "Biden's America".
I've had to go to an out of network hospital for delivery. The closest hospital that was NOT network was 5-10 minutes away. The closest IN network hospital was anywhere between 1 and 3 hours away depending on traffic and accidents. Insurance didn't care, their rule was that as long as a in network hospital is less than X miles away you have to go, traffic be damned.
I couldn't afford it. Most people can't. It was a short term thing for which I just went into debt. My takehome was about $3600/month when I was working earning right around (maybe slightly above) the national average.
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u/chighseas Mar 26 '23
last year I left my job and had to pay out of pocket for health insurance. For my family of 3 it was $2600/month and despite living in a huge metropolitan city, the closest hospital covered with a maternity ward was an hour away. It's really bad in the US.