Comment by eddieplan9 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eddieplan9 | Hacker News Reader

Take this piece with a huge grain of salt because it misquotes to exaggerate.

The second statement - "A third of Americans can’t afford food, shelter, and healthcare" - is based on a CFPB survey [1] that scores "how people in the U.S. feel about their financial well-being". The survey finds that a third of Americans, experience "running out, or worrying about running out, of food, not being able to afford medical treatment or a place to live, or having utilities turned off". It's not hard to find enough people who are worrying about not being to afford medical treatment.

The third statement - "Healthcare for a family now costs $28k " - is a misquote. The original report [2] states that "the cost of healthcare for a typical American family of four covered by an average employer-sponsored preferred provider organization (PPO) plan is $28,166". The same report lists that employee contribution is $7,674, and employee out-of-pocket is $4,704. If you want to include the full premium as "cost", then you also need to adjust the median household income to include employee contribution and all sorts of non-wage benefits.

[1] https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201709_cfpb_fi...

[2] http://us.milliman.com/uploadedFiles/insight/Periodicals/mmi...

1. Have you actually read the survey you referenced? It is not just finding random people on the street, it's using "GfK Knowledge Panel® (GfK panel), a recruited internet panel designed to be nationally representative of U.S. households.". You need better argument or evidence to dismiss the survey.

2. The point of the quote is to prove high cost of healthcare overall to the society, not just the employee. In employer's perspective, insurance premium is considered cost of the employee, which has impacts on the employees' wages. So although the statement may not be precise, the point is not wrong.

1. I have. My main point is that the survey is about how people feel about their finance, not actual financial reality as in "one-third cannot afford food, shelter, and healthcare". The survey itself actually says

> roughly one-third of individuals have difficulty making ends meet and approximately one out of five sometimes have difficulty paying for basic needs like food, housing, and medical care.

So even taking it at face value, the ratio is 1/5 instead of 1/3? And also

> while financial circumstances are highly correlated with financial well-being scores, individuals with quite different experiences can arrive at the same score

This further indicates the survey is about people's perception about personal finance, not objective financial reality.

2. IMHO, the author's point is not really "US spends a lot on healthcare as a country", but that US is a "rich" country but people are "poor" because they have little dispensable income after paying for healthcare etc. Comparing total insurance premium against household income is a faulty way to support that point. I agree US spends a lot on healthcare, but it's not bad enough to justify labeling US people as "poor".

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