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'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

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Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#171

Post by tirant »

supermatt wrote: post #155
tirant wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s absolutely not an exception. I’m in Germany, and for a family of four, the public healthcare system, covering my wife and my two kids costs us around 2,200€ per month. The company pays half. A switch to a private insurance would lower the costs around half.

You must be mistaken… The maximum personal contribution to public health insurance (GKV) is capped at around 400/m for healthcare (and an additional 200 towards long-term/elderly care). Spouse and children are free if they are unemployed. https://www.tk.de/resource/blob/2189790/9321e565c304a9cc33bb... If you are paying more than that then you are already paying for private health insurance (PKV) or private supplement…

I am not mistaken. I know how to read my own payslip.

Both me and my wife are employed. We have GKV both and we’re basically paying the maximum rate. That’s around €1100/month each, pre-tax. Half of it comes from my official bruto salary and the other half comes from my unofficial bruto salary. Which is how governments hide the costs of public healthcare. Ultimately is part of my salary deductions for the finances of my employer.

Kids are not free: kids doctors don’t work for free. They need to be payed, and they’re paid from the contributions me and other employed fellow citizens pay every month.

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#172

Post by Ekaros »

johnnienaked wrote: post #120
rimbo789 wrote: post #67

Nationalize health care. Doctors should work for the government, hospitals should be owned by the government; for profit health care is a scam.

Your taxes would double, and don't even bother trying to say they wouldn't literally every country with public health care pays twice as much as we do in tax

Does it really matter if cost is in "insurance" or in tax? Wouldn't overall lower total be better?

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#173

Post by tirant »

sumuyuda wrote: post #168
tirant wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have lived in 3 countries with socialized health care system and the public systems were just average to poor, and costing me a lot. In Germany if you’re mid to high earner, a private insurance can cost you less than half than the public healthcare system and you get much better service. Starting with appointments with specialists, who always give preference to privately insured people. In this day and age public h…

> In Germany if you’re mid to high earner, a private insurance can cost you less than half than the public healthcare system and you get much better service. Starting with appointments with specialists, who always give preference to privately insured people. The solution here is to get rid of private insurance in Germany and only have public. It creates a two class system and private is a terrible choice once you are…

Actually the solution is to go full private.

Costs when you get older skyrocket, but not your monthly contribution.

You subsidize your own elderly costs by paying slightly more during your younger years. That slightly more is part of the insurance companies Float, which gets invested and is used 30-40 years later to cover your extra costs in old age.

In a public system there’s no float. Everyone pays to cover the costs of the healthcare for that budget year. Which has the consequence that whenever there are population age shifts, the system becomes not sustainable, which is our current situation in Germany.

If everyone (except unemployed) had private health insurance, population age would be non-problem.

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#174

Post by daft_pink »

geerlingguy wrote: post #5

I was paying around $1200/month last year (a little under that with subsidy). This year I'm paying $2100/month for a family of five, on a roughly equivalent plan. Except, none of the options in my state allow me to visit the PCP I switched to this year (since none of the plans last year covered my PCP from the year before). So I guess I'm on a primary care physician merry go round :D I am at least able to have my mai…

my premium actually went down because my carrier left aca, but there are no longer any carriers with a decent network in the exchange.

the networks in the illinois aca suck if you live in the chicago area.

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#175

Post by JKCalhoun »

johnnienaked wrote: post #124
JKCalhoun wrote: post #6

I read healthcare now amounts to buying a new car every year. (Except, of course, nothing new in your driveway, nothing to resell, etc.)

I pay $120/mo. I don't understand. Are you including the employer paid share in this calculation?

You are lucky to have employer-provided health care.

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#176

Post by JKCalhoun »

runako wrote: post #28
JKCalhoun wrote: post #6

I read healthcare now amounts to buying a new car every year. (Except, of course, nothing new in your driveway, nothing to resell, etc.)

This is misleading. Health insurance premiums cost about as much as buying a new car every year. Healthcare is generally on top of those premium payments.

I suspect it was health insurance premiums being discussed. Thanks.

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#177

Post by [deleted] »

tirant wrote: post #171
supermatt wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be mistaken… The maximum personal contribution to public health insurance (GKV) is capped at around 400/m for healthcare (and an additional 200 towards long-term/elderly care). Spouse and children are free if they are unemployed. https://www.tk.de/resource/blob/2189790/9321e565c304a9cc33bb... If you are paying more than that then you are already paying for private health insurance (PKV) or private supplement…

I am not mistaken. I know how to read my own payslip. Both me and my wife are employed. We have GKV both and we’re basically paying the maximum rate. That’s around €1100/month each, pre-tax. Half of it comes from my official bruto salary and the other half comes from my unofficial bruto salary. Which is how governments hide the costs of public healthcare. Ultimately is part of my salary deductions for the finances of…

[deleted]

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#178

Post by xtiansimon »

runako wrote: post #42
p0w3n3d wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Guy from Poland here. What happened to ObamaCare? I thought you got finally a primary healthcare for all?

Quick summary: the US does not have anything approaching a modern healthcare system. (And likely will not for quite some time due to a set of structural factors.) Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act or ACA) was an attempt to expand coverage and slow the rate of increase of costs. It did the former but less well with the latter. One other thing the ACA did is stop the scourge of scam insurers. This is a thing where peo…

Don’t forget the repeal of the ACA healthcare mandate: “The federal individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act, which required people to pay a tax penalty if they did not have health insurance, was repealed in 2019.”

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8886708/

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#179

Post by docdeek »

tirant wrote: post #169
docdeek wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression that German healthcare was essentially free (government funded) at the point of delivery, with additional top-insurance carried by most people similar to how it is in here in France. Here I am self-employed and pay about 100 euros a month in top-up insurance (mutuelle) for myself and a couple of kids. Of course, the healthcare costs more, that’s why my taxes are high; but the insurance cost…

Free at point of delivery does not mean free at all. Netflix is also free when delivering you movies, but it costs a monthly fee. I think it’s time that we all stop with the nonsense that government funded healthcare is free. Because who ends up funding the government are us, the citizens, and that costs lots of money. Some governments, like the German one, still make the costs transparent to the citizen, something y…

>> In your case you believe your cost is only 1200€ a year, because your government has not made at all clear to you how much you’re paying from your other taxes into the healthcare system.

I absolutely do not believe my healthcare costs only €1200 a year. As I wrote, my top-up insurance costs about €1200 a year, and the healthcare costs more and that is why my taxes are so high.

Re: 'A full-blown crisis': Americans brace for a surge in healthcare costs

#180

Post by docdeek »

orwin wrote: post #164
docdeek wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was under the impression that German healthcare was essentially free (government funded) at the point of delivery, with additional top-insurance carried by most people similar to how it is in here in France. Here I am self-employed and pay about 100 euros a month in top-up insurance (mutuelle) for myself and a couple of kids. Of course, the healthcare costs more, that’s why my taxes are high; but the insurance cost…

That will be hard to explain in English but you can find what you're paying to French healthcare system by looking at your paycheck (the document you receive every month that detail your paycheck rather). It basically either 7% or 13% of your paycheck (and .5% of non-work income via the CSG), and you have a hard cap on total contributions (4k/month, and healthcare if a bit more than half of that, so a bit more than 2…

Thanks for this. I work independently (no CDI or CDD) so I don’t get the paycheck/payslip. I imagine it is broken down somewhere in the different taxes I pay, but unfortunately I don’t get the monthly reminder.
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