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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

I had to drop off my health insurance when the bill hit $4,850.24/month.

Millions did the same. https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/19/aca-enrollees-uninsured.html

This is a problem specific to the US. The price of your health insurance is very far from the actual cost of it to providers.

FAANG wages are also fairly specific to the US - the two go hand in hand

That sucks and I hope congress gets their shit together soon, but there are a lot of non-FAANG companies that offer insurance.

That money black hole hits companies too. A $50k/year job typically can't throw in $60k in healthcare benefits.

It’s not that much.

https://www.peoplekeep.com/blog/cost-of-employer-sponsored-h...

A small company can use a PEO like Rippling (a YC company) where employees are “co employed” with the actual company and for taxes/HR/benefits with for Rippling. It’s not like contracting. Everyone from the CEO down is “co employed”

It really is.

The US saw an average of $14,885 per-capita healthcare costs in 2024. Higher now.

I’m never going to defend the American health care system as I sit in a country now for six weeks where I fully plan to become a resident of post retirement mainly because of the healthcare even if I don’t live here full time.

I think the world would be a much better place if travel was more common.

Having people see how other countries work on a regular basis really opens your eyes.

And then you have travel and expensive healthcare to pay for.

I’m also not treating these six weeks as a tourist. My wife and I both learning Spanish - she’s just starting I’m at around a high A2 (https://www.escuela-hablamos.com/en/understanding-the-common...).

We are involved in ex pat groups on Facebook, have gone to meet ups, and are having dinner with a few people we have met.

> I hope congress gets their shit together soon

Narrator: "In fact, they did not"

My guy, congress can't even remove valid bad actors who openly lie to and threaten them. They will never fix any problems except their "light" pocket book

Trump rather likes handing out cash, as long as he can put his name on it. Maybe as long as congress agrees to call it TrumpCare.

I know how much the American health care system sucks. But I have looked into a high deductible health care plan on the exchange for myself and my wife - both over 50 to calculate how much we would need to survive a month of unemployment. It was around $1000/mo with no subsidies for a bronze plan.

This is a family plan; the bronze plans are $2400 or so a month. But that means a huge deductible; for a high-needs family, it works out worse financially.

When I compared plans at work over the years, I’ve found that it is rarely cheaper to do low deductible/higher monthly costs than higher deductible /lower monthly cost + pay deductible out of pocket.

That will vary from person to person.

In our case, we tend to hit the max out-of-pocket pretty fast.

Is that still cheaper than high deductible + HSA contribution to cover the deductible?

Yes. Substantially so, in my case.

Likely not for many, but I definitely did all this math annually.

Both my wife and I have been contractors for decade+ and have been with Kaiser and are paying $1.1k/month for Bronze-ish plan (1 child)

How does that work if you have a pre-existing condition? I am honestly curious

ACA-compliant plans can't deny or change pricing for them.

It was a good change, but it needed the individual mandate to function successfully. That got removed.

ACA put a stop to that

You think regular Americans have the money to afford high deductible plans? One ER visit bankrupts people.

High deductible plans max out at around $10K deductible. But it’s the same cost in my experience low deductible vs high deductible + HSA contribution.

The difference being that if you don’t need to use your HSA in a year you keep it - unlike low deductible plans.

Ah yes because the family making $40k/year can afford $10k in medical expenses.

In my experience the cost of a low deductible health plan is more expensive than a high deductible health plan + equivalent amount of a pre tax HSA.

I have never known a health care provider that you can’t negotiate a payment plan with. Even if your HSA isn’t funded, they could probably have a payment plan = HSA monthly contribution and then take it out of the HSA.

Yes I understand that a lot of people making $40K would be deftly afraid of doing that. But they would still statistically come out ahead

A family making 40k a year qualifies for significant benefits and subsidies, even today. But don't let not knowing what you're talking about stop you from angrily talking about it.

That’s incredible. That must be responsible for population decline (migration more than death).

You were working at a FAANG and had the enhanced subsidies? That strikes me as complete bullshit and non sequitur to the post.

ACA plans and LG/SG plans are not the same, and pretending they are is, frankly, a large part of why healthcare in this country is such a dumb discussion - those discussing it have no idea what they're talking about.

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