A question about American health care?

Status
Not open for further replies.
J

jagwomen

Member
Nov 12, 2015
170
132
#1
Hi everyone:smile:
We were having a heated debate about the American healthcare system on native forum that I am at.
People were telling all sorts of thing and I just couldn't believe it. So instead of assuming I will ask here.
So the question is if it really has this insane price tag that everybody says it has how can you afford healthcare? Someone said that because of a neonatal baby they were in the hospital for two months. This had a price tag of 300 000 US dollars. But how is this paid? I may be stupid but could someone please explain to me how the system actually works?
 
#2
jagwomen said:
Hi everyone:smile:
We were having a heated debate about the American healthcare system on native forum that I am at.
People were telling all sorts of thing and I just couldn't believe it. So instead of assuming I will ask here.
So the question is if it really has this insane price tag that everybody says it has how can you afford healthcare? Someone said that because of a neonatal baby they were in the hospital for two months. This had a price tag of 300 000 US dollars. But how is this paid? I may be stupid but could someone please explain to me how the system actually works?
Click to expand...
yes it does have that insane price tag. if you do not have health insurance, you are responsible for all of that payment. If you do have coverage, you still might be responsible for that payment. It depends on whether or not the plan decides to cover what you claim on it.
Many people can not afford care.
 
#4
There are very few individual health insurance plans, so if you are not in a "group" health plan from your work, you will have even higher costs. Typically, a regular plan will cost, I don't know maybe $300-$800 a month for a family, then when there are medical needs, the family is responsible for 100% up to their deductible (let's say $3000). After that, the insurance company will pay a percentage, like 80% of all other bills. Once you pay so much out of pocket, like $6k-$12k, the insurance will pay 100%. So in theory, for a $300k bill, you should only pay your out of pocket maximum ($6k-$12k).

That's all fine and dandy, but it doesn't usually work so nicely. Some procedures the insurance companies don't like to cover, many costs and medications they won't cover, etc. Your costs often end up a couple thousand or more past your out of pocket maximum.

Having said that, my husband went through chemo, cancer, and surgeries, and he just about only paid his out of pocket max plus a little. It was a blessing. On the other hand, I'm doing fertility treatments which are covered 0%, so all of those and the medications are out of pocket. Birth control and female care, however, and are almost always covered. Someone told me once it's much cheaper to prevent a woman from having a baby than the actual costs from pre natal care and birth, so they encourage cheap/free birth control.

If you have no health insurance, my understanding is that the hospitals will work with you on a payment plan and will discount the service. In America, if you're actively paying off a medical bill, no matter how big, your credit is not affected.

Anyone if I am wrong, please correct me. I likely have a narrow view of how things work but I think I covered the basics.

Ps - self employed people are on their own health care plans, and they are outrageously expensive. Some of my colleagues pay $1500-$2000/ month for health insurance. They don't make more than $50k-$60k a year and do not qualify for any of ***** Care assistance.
 
#5
I actually never though about how bad this actually is! But what happens when the ***** care is gone ? For me this sound so insane! But if I think about myself I make around 90 k a year. And for me around 40% goes away in taxes. Do people in the us also pay this amount?
 
#7
You can open up a can of worms with ***** care so I won't go into details. Basically, some people have found their insurance costs have gone up, and others like being on the government plans. What i think, and I can be wrong, is that one of the reasons health insurance is so expensive isn't necessarily due to ***** care but because insurance companies cannot cross and compete over state lines. That's a good discussion for an expert. What I do know is many, many middle class families cannot afford health care, so they go without or spend a large amount of their takehome on health care.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top
Back