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Comment by brianwawok | Hacker News Reader

90 percent up to out of pocket max. My out of pocket max has always been between 1k and 5k per year. So if I need 1 million dollar cancer treatment, I don't pay 100k. I pay 5k.

So no I cannot go bankrupt with health insurance in the US.

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The ACA did fix some of that, but there are situations that can still be challenging. The max out of pocket can be higher than yours..close to $8k/person, and it's annual, so if you get sick late in the year, the clock starts over. It's also not uncommon to have to go out of network for certain types of treatment, which opens up more doors.

Also, many people aren't able to work when they are sick.

I see you have actual experience with the system. Most people commenting here seem to be parroting talking points from politicians.

When I actually post my real experiences, I get down voted to -2.

....and we wonder why there are so many broken systems in the US.

You called $250/month affordable, which is almost an entire week's salary full-time on the federal minimum wage. 20% of your wage for a poor person is not 'affordable'. There are 45M people poor enough to be on food stamps in the US - the average monthly net income of these people is $335[0].

[0]https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-03/food-stam...

Median household income is 52k. At 52k, you get massive ACA subsidies. At say 75k or 100k, yes you can afford the $250 (or more realistically $1000 or $1500) it costs to get a family health insurance.

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