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Comment by pfarnsworth | Hacker News Reader

I was in the hospital over Christmas because of a very severe infection. I was there for 2 weeks, and am lucky to be alive. The costs were over $150k, but I ended up paying $1500 in various deductibles to Kaiser, etc. I was happy to pay $1500 and am alive because of the care that I got. I pay about $6000 a year in medical insurance per year through my employer and it ended up being totally worth it. Not a few weeks previous, one of my children was rushed via ambulance to the same hospital because of an anaphylactic reaction.

So yes, much of your costs are for possible emergencies and especially as you get older, your costs increase.

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$6000/year sounds very low for healthcare in the U.S. When you say "I pay" are you really only counting the employee contribution? For purposes of analyzing aggregate healthcare costs for a whole country, we ought to be using combined employee+employer costs (W2 DD) and not just the (usually small) employee portion highlighted by HR at benefits season.

I prefer to look at per capita cost, especially when comparing with other nations. It's appalling that we pay twice as much as anyone else, and that almost everyone has better care than we do in terms of outcome.

Not op, but you got me curious so I checked my W-2. $8,800 for me and I think mine is top notch (2,600 is my max out of pocket per year limit)

fwiw mine is about $20k with a $5k oop max, for a family of 2 in California. This compares to a worst-case ACA cost of about $65k.

Yes, I know and that's why I am still paying. But seriously, we are paying for emergencies, this should be stated when paying for the insurance. Second, why were the costs $150000?

It’s right in the name. It’s called Insurance, not Healthcare as a Service.

Kaiser platinum is pretty close to Healthcare as a Service.

Can confirm I love Kaiser but both the best and worst parts for me are the bureaucracy -> time/$ savers. Great when it's fast and cheap, can email Dr to get meds/treatment, get meds mailed 3 for 2 price - but frustrating when wait to see a specialist is more than a month or being rushed through in person visits like cattle. And I feel well taken care proactively with multi-DR/NP team.

Plus they actually did a good job reimbursing me for costs when I had to get care in a non-kaiser state no hassle or haggling.

Just curious, what are your total yearly expenses on Kaiser? And how much does the employer pays on top of that, do you know? Thanks

I own our company with a partner, so it's me paying for it either way. I buy on the market but company pays for it.

I think the overall costs are lower for Kaiser, I think I have one of the gold plans and it's only like $20-40 copay for fairly specialist visits and most medicine is really affordable. I pay labs costs and I think looking at bill I remember them being more than the actual Doctor and they seem fairly expensive.

In past years I've found I barely have any costs or recently with a 'high health' year a few of the more rate big costs helped me the out of pocket pretty quick.

Just googling found this: http://info.kaiserpermanente.org/healthplans/colorado/indivi...

The bill might have shown 150k, but costs to a hospital for 2 a weeks stay due to an infection should be a long way from 150k.

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