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>You'll get ruined in US if you get cancer in your close family despite 'paying for healthcare' all your life.

Not really if you have insurance which as a software engineer you would have. Might hit your $10k out of pocket maximum but you salary will easily cover that.

edit: When my dad got cancer his insurance actually PAID him a cash payout for every treatment on top of paying the medical costs. He works at a non profit.

jason0597 1989 days ago

The person in the Twitter thread notes how her minimum wage mother had cancer. I think it is highly unlikely that someone working at a minimum wage job would be covered for that by their insurance (I may be wrong)

This now infamous reddit comment puts it into perspective very well: https://old.reddit.com/r/ABoringDystopia/comments/hj6t3t/not...

The comment I replied to made broad statements and based on the second sentence was talking about anyone with a cancer risk and not just those making low income. I don't disagree with your statement about costs to those lacking decent insurance, I merely disagree with creating broad generalizations unfounded in reality.

Are you really unaware of Medicaid? Here in Maryland, a 3-person household like the author's can make up to $29,000/year and be eligible for Medicaid.

The US is really bad for the lower middle class in terms of social support. The poor can get passable benefits if they know how to apply but the middle class doesn't get that. As a note, there's other social issues with being poor in the US so I wouldn't recommend that either.

That's why we spent a bunch of money creating the ACA. If I was a single person here in Maryland making $24,000 per year, I could get a low-deductible health plan for $115/month (and a high-deductible one for a fraction of that).

That's 5.75% of gross income, which is lower than the health-insurance tax a lower middle class person would pay in most European countries.

The issue is that insurance companies don't always pay out as they have incentive to find ways to avoid paying. Then you're on the hook. If I remember, deductibles for example don't fully cover many hospital stays so you get hit with out of pocket costs. Those have a maximum cap but I'm sure there's some caveats if you end up in a hospital that's not in network for example. This is what people talk about when they say they went bankrupt despite having insurance.

edit: For example checking the Maryland ACA page is showing maximum out of pocket costs of $7k/person for most plans and up to $17k/family for some. When you make $24k/year that will wipe out your savings for years.

scotty79 1989 days ago

It's 1.25% in Poland. Technically 9% but you can deduct 7.75 of those 9 diectly out of the tax you owe.

It doesn't depend on income and gives you access to whatever hospitals can provide for everybody. My SO had six brain surgeries, two radiation treatments (one with cyber-knife) and Temodar chemo twice, and months of rehabilitation and hospital stay for that. She still died in the end but she got few years of healthy life more (and a year of some life) for the 1.25% of patchy mostly freelancing income. All she had to spend on top of that was maybe 100$ on minor medicaments.

https://healthpayerintelligence.com/news/cancer-patients-pai...

> In a case study, a patient with lymphoma paid out-of-pocket healthcare costs from $6,446 in a large employer-sponsored health plan to $12,931 in a health plan on the individual health insurance market. These were all Affordable Care Act (ACA)-compliant plans.

Total out of pocket costs for cancer were $5.6 billion in 2018, with 1.8 million cases. That's about $3,100 out of pocket per diagnosis on average.

Over a career, you'll pay way more in additional taxes in Europe than whatever you'll save in out of pocket costs in the U.S. if you get cancer.

raverbashing 1989 days ago

> In contrast, in a short-term limited duration plan that does not have to conform to ACA standards, the patient paid $51,660 out-of-pocket.

So you just need to be lucky to have an employer that won't fire you if you get sick right?

There is no need for a short-term limited duration plan under the ACA, because losing your job is a qualifying event that allows you to enroll in the ACA exchange or Medicaid (depending on our financial situation) and that can't be denied due to pre-existing conditions.

We've had the ACA for a decade now, you can't just pretend it never happened.

JPKab 1989 days ago

You have an incredibly inaccurate take on the US healthcare system. I live here and I'm in my late 30s with a family. My wife is a cancer survivor. My oldest son was born 3 months premature. and yet I'm not penniless and broke because my health insurance paid for everything.

I'm not saying it's an ideal system and doesn't have major flaws but if you are a software engineer the scenario you are describing just isn't a thing. I'm sure it feels a lot better to tell yourself that when you realize you're being paid a quarter what you could be on the other side of the Atlantic.

> I'm not saying it's an ideal system and doesn't have major flaws but if you are a software engineer the scenario you are describing just isn't a thing. I'm sure it feels a lot better to tell yourself that when you realize you're being paid a quarter what you could be on the other side of the Atlantic.

Most people saying this stuff have never had to actually use the U.S. safety net. There's a lot of stuff we could fix: making medicaid enrollment automatic, extending unemployment benefits, etc. But pretending all these programs don't exist is crazy.

realityking 1989 days ago

> but if you are a software engineer the scenario you are describing just isn't a thing

Note that the author of the original tweet was not afraid of her own financial situation but doesn’t want live in a system where _anyone_ has to fear going broke over medical expenses.