civilservant

How can someone, who works at a hospital as a basic technican and earns $850 a month AFTER taxes, be resonably expected to pay fully 40% of that take home pay ($300) for even the most basic healthcare, leaving around $500 for everything else - eating, rent, a car etc?

I mean, it comes to something when the fine that will be dished out under Obamacare will be sufficently less than the premium that you are still better off not to have insurance?

How can any country that forces this on it's citizens resonably call itself first world?

'rantover

GeoffM

Welcome to the US. The best healthcare money can buy. Emphasis on the last word.

Sally Redux

The whole 'system' is rotten.

Giantaxe

With that income he may well qualify for Medicaid after Jan 1st, 2014. Except if he lives in the - mainly Republican - states that have refused so far to expand Medicaid. If he does, he's screwed.

civilservant

He is a she, and GA is very Republican!

morayeel

I also live in a republican state, MS! I have no health insurance and no job at the moment! It certainly is a worry..

Pulaski

What sort of "basic technician" earns $850 after taxes? (Presumably about $1,100 before tax). Either she'd better be on track (and in training) for several promotions in the next few years, or she needs another job. .... Or another career!

Hawkini

This country would probably be doing many, many times better economically if almost all people that live here were not required to pay *extortionate* insurance. The system is indeed rotten, from top down, and those at the top will never, ever want that to change. The money they do make goes straight back into making sure that the health care industry stays as it is, and probably get worse.

An interesting article I read says:

"Surprisingly, medical services can vary wildly from one hospital to the next. The median charge for acute appendicitis admissions at 289 medical centers and hospitals throughout California, for example, ranged from $1,529 to almost $183,000."

Take this procedure, and it's normal cost is say $10,000.

Insurance company says "Our deal says 30%, so we're only paying you $3k."

Hospital thinks, ok, but we really want 10k... next time, "
Oh, this procedure costs $30k. Insurance company says "Our deal says 30%, so we're only paying you 10k." Hospital thinks "damn, that was easy."

Next time, "oh this procedure costs $183,000". Insurance company either says "we're not covering your hospital" or... "Our deal says 30%, so we're only paying you $55k". etc etc

hungryhorace

How do you end up paying $300 for healthcare? I pay $75 for my Tufts healthcare.

Sally Redux

Was that from the recent 'Time' article?

As you say, too many people at the top are benefitting from it for easy change to occur.

civilservant

It's not me, but ultimately the employer offers what the employers offers right? I'm not there yet, so I'm not sure if private is likely to be any better or even an option - a period of non-coverage is not only likely not inevitable.

And incidentally, suggesting someone finds another job is not really helpful. If we were all Doctors would clean the floors?

GeoffM

I'm not sure I read the same article as I don't remember appendicitis but the results were generally the same - a range that is extraordinarily way beyond just shopping around, like the cheapest being 1% of the highest cost. Anything with that kind of variation in a standard procedure is clearly milking it in extremis at the higher end.

Giantaxe

How do you "shop around" when you have appendicitis?

Sally Redux

It's the American Dream.

GeoffM

That's another example of how it's so messed up. I was paying $527 (about to go up to ~$600) for individual insurance; now it's under $100 for broadly the same coverage with the same company. Why so different? Individual versus group coverage - and no the employer does not pay the $427 difference.

While we're on the subject, "group" coverage: Some states insist on groups of one; California is one that does not. The "United" States it is not - and of course in many different ways than just this one simple example.