The percentage of the population who don't have anything like that kind of money in savings is huge. And that is after you already pay huge amounts for insurance.
Additionally, the less money you make, the worse coverage you probably can afford, leaving you even more exposed.
You're absolutely right that it's insane that Americans talk about this as if it's just the only way things could work.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2016/01/06/63-of-...
I constantly hear economists saying people are spending outside their means, but when the price of getting sick with a throat infection is beyond their means, or will set their savings back by months or even years, is it really the people who are at fault?
Maybe if we don't want people spending beyond their means, we shouldn't have highly paid professions entirely devoted to getting people to spend without regard to their means.
Those who are fortunate to have good benefits are also usually able to set aside money for medical expenses. On the opposite side of things you end up having people with poor to no insurance with medical bills of more then they can afford to ever pay.
How do you do that though? The video which started this discussion is a young healthy woman who suddenly discovered she had a brain tumour. It could happen to anyone.
Fair enough, if I have a large amount of savings I might try to reduce the monthly payment by increasing the amount of risk I'm taking. But aren't those the people who would be most likely to have their insurance as part of their benefits package and so aren't paying for it directly anyway?
In my case we are offered a HSA plan that the employer ends up paying us a small amount by contributions into your HSA account. That is a high deductible plan though so you will pay for everything until you hit that deductible. We are also offered more traditional 80/20 and 90/10 plans which have a much higher monthly cost but spaces out the cost of things more as the deductible is much lower.
The HSA plan is very risky for the first year as my max out of pocket was more then I was legally allowed to contribute to my HSA. The second year I had enough savings put away where even if I ended up with a giant expensive issue I had enough put away for that max out of pocket number. This plays well into the scenario in the video. I have to protect myself going forward from the unforeseen medical issues. In my current situation that means making sure I have at least 1 years worth of my max out of pocket expenses saved up. Now I am covered even if unexpected things happen.
As a single adult with a good job it is much easier then if I had a family or was working a lower paying job. Even then you can do all the calculations but the risk factor goes up with the more people you have as the unknown portion grows. There is no good solution, that I know of, with our current healthcare system. I just try to play the game and do my best to stay healthy and prepare for the day when I am not.
Like gun control the issue has reached a stable equilibrium of political stupidity and I don’t see how it could change in the current climate.
I have no sympathy whatsoever for my hostage-takers, but I'm unlikely to fight my way out of this one, so might as well go back to talking about out-of-pocket maximums until I can make a shiv out of this toothpick.