Hacker News Reader

Comment by MattPalmer1086 | Hacker News Reader

I guess if 90k was the max you could pay, it might not make sense. After all, you are paying more than 90k over 3 years. You could just save the money and have savings if you didn't get ill. I bet it could be a lot higher than that though.

View on HN

> After all, you are paying more than 90k over 3 years.

That $90k ran up much faster than that, even with shitty insurance paying at least some of it, and medical needs continued to accelerate for a while afterwards. Savings wouldn't have done a bit of good; it was rapidly exhausted. (That's not part of the $90k, either! It's on top!)

There's essentially no cap on potential medical bills.

There is now; ACA plans have a max out-of-pocket amount, for which I'm very grateful. My bankrutpcy was pre-ACA.

Be careful because there are two many out of pocket amounts. One for in network and one for our of network. Most ACA plans that I can get in my state do not have an out of network max. That's a huge risk because most hospitals have out of network contractors. That means if you stay in a hospital that is in network, you'll still get billed separately for out of network care. And half the hospital staff might be out of network. So you can still go bankrupt in an in network hospital. The ACA really didn't do much to protect people from bankruptcy.

Thankfully, my state (NY) forbids that little loophole.

https://www.dfs.ny.gov/consumers/health_insurance/surprise_m...

If the hospital is in-network, you're good.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com