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| ▲ | greedo 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | If you accept cancer as a death sentence, you're an idiot. I had cancer at age 41. If I left it untreated, sure I'd be dead, probably by age 43. But I'm not an idiot, I had good health insurance, I was treated, and now that health event is over twenty years in the past. Had I self-funded with a (non-existent) nest egg, I would still be in debt over $600k. Instead, my insurance had to deal with that... | | |
| ▲ | mothballed 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | 600k once in 40 years is cheap compared to the total cost of insurance, especially when you consider the compound interest you could have made on premiums not paid, plus with the freedom to get cancer care cheaper someplace privately outside the US. Your insurance company got the last laugh by a long shot. A typical family on insurance would pay $600,000 (between their take-home and the reduced wages paid by employers to cover insurance) in just 25 years, and that's before considering the opportunity cost of lost investments/yield. | | |
| ▲ | raw_anon_1111 an hour ago | parent [-] | | Are you really suggesting that a family should not have insurance at all and save the money? I have been working for 30 years and have never once paid more than $10K a year for insurance across 10 jobs 15 of those years were a family plan. Hell one of those jobs was with Amazon - the company with the shittiest benefit package in all of BigTech and even then I only $12K with a family plan. Right now we pay around $10K - my wife myself and my adult but under 26 (step)son |
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| ▲ | paulddraper 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | While I won’t argue insurance wasn’t overall beneficial in your case… There is no way that $600,000 is the cash price for cancer treatment (especially 20 years ago, but also today). The average cost of cancer treatment is $150k [1], and lower with cash price + shopping. [1] https://treatcancer.com/blog/cost-of-cancer/ |
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| ▲ | raw_anon_1111 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | How much of a nest egg do you think would let you afford a major operation like heart surgery or cancer care? | | |
| ▲ | paulddraper 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Read the qualifier. And heart surgery is ~$60k. [1] That's <36 months of insurance premiums according to the earlier poster. [1] https://cost.sidecarhealth.com/ts/heart-bypass-surgery-cost-... | | |
| ▲ | raw_anon_1111 an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | I have never in my 30 year career paid more than $10K a year for health care across 10 jobs and that’s including working at Amazon with their shitty benefit package | |
| ▲ | mothballed 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It cost $30k for a loved one just to go to the hospital when their heart "felt weird" but absolutely nothing turned out to be wrong and all they did was run a couple quick scans and tests. I do agree with the overall idea of what you're saying that usually the premiums are way more than what you could get care for if you just saved the money, but the numbers on the website seem very wrong. I realize it's a total anecdote but from loved one's bills it is $20-30k just to get in the door and that is if actually nothing is wrong and there is no heart attack yet they're quoting $30k for an actual heart attack care. | | |
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| ▲ | watwut 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Even a minor one. |
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