[joezydeco]

Thanks for the backup. Tom is totally on the mark.

Every time I encounter a conversation about healthcare in the US, all I do now is ask if the other party has ever tried to purchase private coverage for their family on the open market. You have no standing to discuss the true situation in this country until you have.

I did it 7 years ago and it was hell. Absolute hell. I can only imagine it's gotten worse since then.

To add a data point, I dug out the medical rate information from my offer package three years ago. The Family PPO premium was $17,000 annually, of which I paid $9600. The Family PPO with $5K HSA was $12,500 to my employer, $5000 of which I would have had to pay. At the time I was easily consuming $5K+ of services for my children, and I had awful experiences with a previous HSA, so the normal PPO was my choice. The rates have jumped 30% since then, and my employer has absorbed most of the jump.