I know I am

America’s entire healthcare system is a scam regardless of age.

That's quite a choice, considering your past posts that make me think you're probably the sole provider for your family. It's definitely not one that I'd make but it seems to be working out for you.Yeah, very glad I've had good insurance over the last 8 or so years. I remember ShayZ adding up all of his cancer-related costs even with insurance and it was a nightmare.

Sorry for triggering you brah I was just trying to troll the OP a little bit because he was upset about how expensive insurance is.

I'd rather pay the money just in case something unforeseen does happen.

No, but others is cheaper because we dont pay for sales people and paper movers. False efficiency of peace

Honestly having my healthcare paid for is the biggest perk of working a government job. My healthcare will be fully paid for if I work 25 years there (4% per year). I'm in the good ol' US and of course our healthcare sucks.

I have full coverage and even get paid extra pretax money for not using all the maximum benefit amount. Salary is low but I don't like having what they call golden handcuffs working here until I retire.

healthcare is free in the usa boyo

make below the poverty line? you now qualify for medicaid and have healthcare subsidized.

old and retired and not working? you now qualify for medicare and have healthcare subsidized.


Everyone else is making above the poverty line and working. They can now afford to pay insurance premiums for themselves. People having trouble paying for it are driving cars they shouldn't and phones they shouldn't be buying etc. They are above the poverty line.

whats your alternative? that literally the point of insurance.....

brb buy 40k car, wreck it the next day...40k down the drain......

lmao at suave

Not quite the perfect analogy. Gambling doesn't pay out/protect you when you have an unforeseen circumstance in your life that will literally leave you homeless. Yes, insurance is almost guaranteed to be a losing proposition, and that's how the companies stay in business, but that's not the way you should look at it. You buy to protect yourself against remote, but catastrophic risk.

Think about it this way:

Get Health Insurance: Expected payout = -$1000/yr (making up numbers here)
Don't get Health Insurance: Expected payout = $0/yr * 95% + 5%*(-$20000) = -$1000/yr

Basically, with my made-up math, you're buying insurance to hedge against a negative outcome that will cost you at least $20K in a given year, which isn't too hard with how expensive our healthcare is. A bad fall, car accident, etc. that's somewhat out of your control can easily put you above that range. If you have a devastating outcome, like a chronic disease, cancer, etc., then you could be ruined by something you didn't plan for. It's also not as simple as "just don't be a fat phuck and you'll be OK", like a lot of miscers think. There's many cases of healthy, young individuals getting cancer, stroke, etc.

It's not likely, but it's important for people to realize what they're potentially gambling financially if they get the unlucky straw from the bunch.

First time ever, OP is right.

My health insurance is only $100/month

How are you guys paying $700? That's outrageous.

It's basically gambling. The Insurance company is betting you won't need it, and you're betting you will.

It's a necessary evil because health care is so overpriced and one trip to the ER can financially ruin you without it.

Out of pocket?

Work might be paying a big percentage of it, than employees pays a certain percentage. Its still alot of money per year for this scam

Fun story: I was briefly between insurance plans once in about 2010. I was about 25 and just figured nothing could go wrong.

Earlier in the week, I'd thrown up for no apparent reason, but just figured I ate something weird. Life moved on although my appetite was not strong. Then one day at work, suddenly, had an overwhelming urge to poop. Could not poop. Drank some water. Vomited. Drank some more water. Vomited some more. Pain was starting to concentrate around my bowel.

Assumed, from Googling, that I had some kind of blockage. Went to the hospital. Pain subsided, but they did a scan and discovered I had appendicitis.

A burst appendix is no joke, but they couldn't give me numbers and I was making too much money for the sliding scale discount. Procedure was uneventful and I was discharged in about 12 hours with a prescription I was allergic to (thanks, doc), but discovered before I took it and ended up back in the hospital. They didn't even warn me to hold a pillow over my abdomen before I sneezed (also thanks, doc).

The bill that I received was for $24,000, including an "Indigent Care Pool" Surcharge to subsidize reimbursing hospitals for people who can't pay their bill (LOL). The anesthesiologist billed me separately.

After some negotiating, including belligerent threats about specific line items I knew were inflated, I got them down to $12,000. 0% interest, so I got on an extremely minimal payment plan and will be making the final payment in a couple months.

I knew going without insurance was stupid even then, but just those six weeks between plans was all it took for me to have a "I never thought the face-eating leopards would eat MY face" moment. Will never allow myself to go without gold-plated health insurance for a day again.

car insurance such a capitalist scam. other countries don't have that ****

health insurance is good though. pays for dental (easily save $1000), eye exams, prescription drugs. and some pay for physio and massage therapists, wellness and recreation ****

I live in massachusetts, can someone please explain to me how mandating health insurance is even constitutional? This is what pisses me off about supreme court and government, i know for a fact the founders of usa would not have thought it was

I had my doc write me prescriptions for therapeutic massage and strength training equipment for muscle and joint pain from working at a desk.

Insurance won't pay, but I get massages and anything I need for my home gym pre-tax through my FSA, which is about 30% off.At the state level, almost any public health law is covered by the general police power delegated by the 10th Amendment. Supreme Court addressed this very early in the country's history. By design, the Founders intended for you to have no rights at all against the states, that state constitutions would be decided by their own people.

At the Federal level, I don't personally believe that it should be upheld. The Commerce Clause has been stretched beyond all meaning, but the Supreme Court couldn't even make that work, and had to dismissively recast it as an income-based tax.

heres another problem, drug prices are inflated and doctor salaries are to high (not surgeons) this is part of the reason insurance is mandated

https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=238610


there is that good thread on Bogleheads about ER care

First, a few comments about our health care system.
# 1 - It is screwed up, broken, and embarrassing to be a part of.

# 2 - Solutions are to either quit pretending it is a real market or to make it a real market. Depending on your political persuasion, you likely lean one way or the other on this.

# 3 - In order to have a functioning market, most/all of the market participants need to have skin in the game and there must be transparency of prices. Neither of those exists in our current health care "market." Especially transparency of prices.

# 4 - The health care system is unlikely to provide transparency of prices because it is so darn profitable not to have transparent prices. It is also an extremely difficult thing to do in any sort of exact manner, but it would be nice to see even in vague terms.

# 5 - Doctors and nurses generally aren't in control of what's on your bill(s) nor does most of the money paid toward your bill(s) go toward doctors and nurses, so no sense in taking it out on them.


hospital and physician billing is seriously screwed up by something called "Chargemaster Pricing." This is where the price on the initial bill is some astronomical amount. These are purposely set high in an effort to maximize profits.

I have insurance through the military (horrible facilities and long wait times though). But for some stuff you can go to other countries and save a ton. Especially dental/vision. Not chit hole countries but places near tourist resorts where the doctors trained in some of the best colleges in America but choose to practice in their country.

Friend just flew to Costa Rica for a mini vacation for the purpose of getting a root canal. Flight, lodging and food/activities and procedure was still cheaper than here. And done in a facility right by the beach.

I just read the tenth amendment, I still cant justify it with that. But hey i guess thats why we have judges to interpret it..

I haven't used mine in almost two years.

People dont remember that health insurance used to be only for catastrophic illness.

They also dont remember that obama was supposed to have his conferences with insurance companies live on CSPAN prior to obamacare being worked up, and last minute they chose not to air the discussion.

There is no reason for a parasitic, gatekeeping middleman.

People fight capitalism vs socialist healthcare, but the middleman making healthcare expensive never comes into the discussion.

health insurance benefits the 1% and is a total phukking scam, unless you get a catastrophic illness.


it essentially comes down to this:

You pay someone hundreds a month for 30 years to insure you against catastrophic illness. if it does happen, you still are still paying the equivalent of a nice car (along with the 50K you paid in insurnace), instead of paying the equivalent of a mansion.

And there are all these in between things that aren't catastrophic. ER visits just be sure. Broken Bones. Pregnancy. Chronic diseases. This is where the real cucking happens. This is where you pay 500 a month to be able to pay only 1,000 a month for your chronic illness medications and physical therapy/etc. This is where you go to the ER, stay over night, and rack up a 20,000 bill but "only" have to pay 10,000 of it.


In the end, it should be your choice period. the insurance companies (car and health) have made probably close to 100K out of me since I was 18, and what I've gotten out of it was yearly physicals and slightly reduced rates for car insurance.

they then take that money and invest it in the stock market, to feed their rich grubby middle men and managers.

the thing is, you can't opt it. it's forced.

it a forced system where risk adverse people are penalized and force to pay for negligent people in order to make the 1% richer.

Yep, I'm moving to a different state after college to avoid this **** that bull**** pisses me off

You have to take it in the context of the day. Franklin's famous quote about trading essential liberty for temporary security was actually in reference to the liberty of the Pennsylvania colonial legislature to do what it wanted without the monarch's approval. (See Pennsylvania Assembly's Reply to the Governor, 1755.)

We understand the Constitution to restrain all government because of the 14th Amendment and Incorporation Doctrine. However, most of the resistance to the Constitution and demands for a Bill of Rights came from Founders who specifically wanted thefederalgovernment curtailed to ensure that states could decide how to govern themselves without interference. (Hence, "anti-federalists".)

In plain English, the 10th Amendment says that this is between the states and their people to settle. The police power, the broad power to pass and enforce laws providing for general order and public safety (like regulations requiring you to wear a seatbelt or carry any kind of insurance), was not explicitly granted to the federal government nor barred to the states, so presumptively is devolved to the states to make their own rules as they see fit.

(See Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824, unanimously decided with a Revolutionary War veteran as Chief Justice, which provides an extensive discussion on public health laws being the domain of the states: "They form a portion of that immense mass of legislation, which embraces every thing within the territory of a State, not surrendered to the general government: all which can be most advantageously exercised by the States themselves. Inspection laws, quarantine laws, health laws of every description, as well as laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c., are component parts of this mass.")

(See also Barron v. Baltimore, 1833, also unanimous from the Marshall Court: "...it is universally understood, it is a part of the history of the day, that the great revolution which established the constitution of the United States, was not effected without immense opposition. ... These amendments demanded security against the apprehended encroachments of the general government—not against those of the local governments. ... These amendments contain no expression indicating an intention to apply them to the state governments. This court cannot so apply them.")

It was only after the ratification of the 14th Amendment, post-Civil War, that the Constitution came to be interpreted as guaranteeing the same individual rights against the states. Some of the Founders would have been irate, but they weren't all of one mind back then either and some actively hated each other. The police power is still what it is, though.

So his taxes wouldn't go up at all and he'd get the same level of care?

I pay $19/month for my family's plan. Can you beat that? Online calculators tell me my taxes in Ontario Canada would be 39985 in USD, for example, while they were only 29,227 in USD where I live now. My job also paid my undergrad tuition 100% so exactly what would I get from that $10,700?

Although to be fair my medical expenses out of pocket last year were $3,420 USD, so I guess that's only a difference of $7,280. What would I get from that $7,280? As a side question, I tore my MCL about 4 years ago and limped right into the orthopedic specialty clinic at about 9:30am, got seen by a specialist, got my MRI and had my physical therapy appointments booked before leaving in time to get lunch. I did have to pay $25 for a copay though. Which country should I consider moving to in order to top this? Very interested since you say it is free.

In general, younger people just need a limited amount of health insurance.

Have it cover yearly physicals, blood work, mental health, and then charges over $10k.

What is health insurance??

I thought the only use was to hoard flex dollars and use them to buy chit like vacation days/sun glasses/gym membership?

Only kidding. Truly Feel bad for the americanbrahs that need to worry about coverage for basic healthcare.

Inb4 socialist Canada