Two Million Dollar Medical Bill

[Lozmaster]

You act as if Canada / Europe doesn't have taxes. Just because your premium payments get routed through the gov't in the form of taxes doesn't mean you aren't paying for it.

You reckon it's $414/mo. for a family? Even assuming all the tax from my earnings went solely on health care, I would still have to earn over $37,549.98 in a year to even break even on that over the year. Obviously thats not even remotely accurate, because there are tons of things that taxes go towards.

In the UK, approximately 13% of tax goes to the NHS. So I would have to be earning nearly $300,000 a year to break even with your system. Now, tax actually goes up the more you earn here, and there are some more taxes in the form of VAT etc, so even lets say even half of that is a good estimate, $150,000, which is very likely to be undershooting it by a considerable margin.

That is absolutely not the likely earnings for what I'm assuming you mean by a family by uk standards (2 Working adults with 2 children). Therefore, I can only conclude that even your pricing is ridiculous.

[ElderTree]

Your argument is terrible, you're telling me he should get health insurance, there are plenty of circumstances off the top of my head which would KEEP HIM FROM DOING that at his age. See the thing is your argument is based off assumptions of his lifestyle, while mine is a fact. The only fact's you presented are how much a baby statistically costs, which I'm sure a lot of ghetto families could debunk.

Health insurance covers 80% on average, rarely anymore than that, would you be able to afford nearly half a million dollar medical bill? No? Terriblely irresponsible.

Also to even piss on your argument further, a child's bill esculates, as does your salary as you grow with age, as do oppurtunities. I'm not sure what you were taught in sex ed class but a baby doesn't come with an initial 250k bill attached to it.

Anyone can afford $400k a lot easier than $2 mil.

If you even bothered to click on the link, you'd notice that the child's bill "escalates" all the way from $11,700/yr for 0-2 yrs old up to $13,530/yr for 15-17 yr olds. Those are also basically the min / max, so all the other ages are still in that range (except for 6-8 yrs old which is 11,650... pretty close to $11,700). Not much of an escalation.

Quite a few countries have free health care and they are doing just fine. Besides, I wasn't asking about the cost of tax-funded healthcare. My point was that with free health care, there would be no such things as two million medical bills. You didn't answer the question

It's not "free" if you're paying taxes to pay for it. TINSTAAFL.

[KhainiWest]

You reckon it's $414/mo. for a family? Even assuming all the tax from my earnings went solely on health care, I would still have to earn over $37,549.98 in a year to even break even on that over the year. Obviously thats not even remotely accurate, because there are tons of things that taxes go towards.

In the UK, approximately 13% of tax goes to the NHS. So I would have to be earning nearly $300,000 a year to break even with your system. Now, tax actually goes up the more you earn here, and there are some more taxes in the form of VAT etc, so even lets say even half of that is a good estimate, $150,000, which is very likely to be undershooting it by a considerable margin.

That is absolutely not the likely earnings for what I'm assuming you mean by a family by uk standards (2 Working adults with 2 children). Therefore, I can only conclude that even your pricing is ridiculous.

Not that it doesn't dissolve your argument but personally I haven't seen a health plan past $250 for a family nowadays. That's what my state offers me at least. Top dollar I could spend is $231 dollars and that gives me all the bells and whistles.

Anyone can afford $400k a lot easier than $2 mil.

If you even bothered to click on the link, you'd notice that the child's bill "escalates" all the way from $11,700/yr for 0-2 yrs old up to $13,530/yr for 15-17 yr olds. Those are also basically the min / max, so all the other ages are still in that range (except for 6-8 yrs old which is 11,650... pretty close to $11,700). Not much of an escalation.

So are you saying you could afford to pay 400k bill tomorrow? All this baby talk is irrelevant because it's a lot easier to manage a child, as expenses can be cut to subsidize the cost, if it get's that bad. You also have to consider the parents possibly pitching in. And by escalate, it means that the price is 10k grand a year, added up, while it be 22k a year for this health bill IF he had health insurance. So that's 33k a year for both, and at that age that's probably 3/4's of your salary.

So please get off this topic because "irresponsibility" is not what anyone is debating here, it's simply that even with health insurance it wouldn't solve his problem, just make it slightly more manageable. I'm sorry, I trusted that you could, I don't know, catch onto that?

Just because he had a baby does not mean he intended too, but he's taking responsibility of it. Does that mean he deserve a 400k let alone 2 million dollar bill? lol no. That's the point your missing and why your argument is plea's of "I can't swim".

[Derosis]

Fact: You're paying for your hospital bill one way or the other.
Fact: If you hear anything "Free" in this world, it's bullsh'it. Strings are always attached regardless of how "free" one thing seems to be. That goes with Charities, Hospitals, Babies, the free samples at grocery stores. Everything has strings attached.

Breaks over, had fun guys. Back to work with me.

[KhainiWest]

Fact: You're paying for your hospital bill one way or the other.
Fact: If you hear anything "Free" in this world, it's bullsh'it. Strings are always attached regardless of how "free" one thing seems to be. That goes with Charities, Hospitals, Babies, the free samples at grocery stores. Everything has strings attached.

Breaks over, had fun guys. Back to work with me.

Except you know, by free it means by paying a subsidary tax, which is 3x less than what the USA pay's, you don't have to pay a copay along with health insurance and an unmanagable bill.

Ignorance is strong in this thread.