[codegeek]

You can decline but then you have to deal with people on the desk who may not even know what to do without insurance. They may have to call their boss to figure out if there is even a cash price possible. You will get crazy looks and stares. DOn't let someone tell you otherwise. I have done this dance for 10+ years with 3 kids now.

[gymbeaux]

Do you not have insurance or do you just prefer to pay the cash price where possible? It’s interesting that you might be voluntarily uninsured despite having 3 kids. The system is such that your kids’ health is a bargaining chip to employers. I know people who have stayed at jobs just for the health insurance, and then there are the H1-B folk who are effectively indentured (“yeah we’re paying you $20k below market rate but we are sponsoring you so… try to be a little more grateful”)

[codegeek]

I do have insurance because that's the game. I don't like it though. Btw my Insurance Premium is $24k/Year and $5k/Year for deductible. So I am almost $30K out of pocket BEFORE insurance pays a dime. If thats not a scam, what is.

[ceejayoz]

Why is that a scam?

My house has never burned down, but I pay homeowners insurance every year. My dad has never had a car accident, but pays every year. Both have deductibles awaiting us if we need them.

It’s insurance, not a prepaid debit card.

[zaroth]

There’s nothing wrong with the concept of an insurance premium or even a deductible.

The problem is the sheer magnitude of the cost. It’s an extraordinary sum of money to be paying out of pocket as an annual family expense for a non-discretionary basic living expense.

And more or less every single family in the US is doing the same? It’s totally untenable.

[ceejayoz]

My kids had about a million dollars in NICU costs from being three months early. I take a $18,800 shot every twelve weeks.

Now, I think a single-payer national health service would be better, but that $30k/year doesn’t surprise me at all. Our monthly premium is $2,700. It sucks, but this stuff is expensive.

[FireBeyond]

> My kids had about a million dollars in NICU costs from being three months early.

Except the true cost of that NICU stay was not a million dollars.

> I take a $18,800 shot every twelve weeks.

The true cost of that medication is not $80,000 a year, including R&D. Particularly for patients who needs meds like that indefinitely.

Pfizer claims that it effectively is profitable everywhere in the world but the US, its base: That of its nearly $40B profits last year, less than $5B was earned in the US, despite its US sales being nearly $50B of it's $100B global revenue (do that math, they say that selling $50B of drugs in the ROW earned them $40B in profit, yet the same sales in the US netted only $5B in profit...) - they're offshoring all their finances, basically.

Big Pharma likes to peddle the myth that all their R&D takes place in the US, hence the costs. That's all it is, a myth. They do significant R&D in the US, sure, and about the same elsewhere in the world. And most of their R&D isn't from first principles, but often leverages publicly funded research in universities and government/quasi-government orgs.

[haldujai]

> Now, I think a single-payer national health service would be better

This isn't the panacea it sounds like, single payer doesn't work that well in Canada. Having worked in both systems the quality of care and accessibility is far better in the US, assuming you have good insurance of course, but it's hard to get access to things in most of Canada until you're actively dying. Primary care is also challenging to access in most places not Toronto.

I've seen conflicting reports on the math of how this plays out while trying to maintain quality and options.

I fully realize I am saying this from a privileged position that an OOP max wouldn't be financially challenging but I would much rather get care in the US than Canada.

I'm not sure what the best system is. Perhaps a two tier system would work better and have a better safety net, although that's controversial as well. I do think single payer is overrated, of course the US might do it better (and obviously has more resources + economies of scale).

[vxNsr]

Yikes! That’s horrifically bad insurance, I’m paying $10k in premiums for a $2k deductible. And I was paying (until my company cheaped out on insurance) $15k/yr on a combined in/out $1k deductible and combined in/out $3k OOP. Which might seem worse but we were using fantastic OON providers that normally would barely be covered but instead were essentially the same as in network.