idk man I just need to vent i guess
my employer “provides” health insurance in exchange for my time and labor, and for that great privilege they take $600 out of my paycheck every month (covers me, my wife, and our 1yo son)
that’s half our monthly mortgage payment; it’s 2/3 our monthly grocery bill
why?
It is definitely bullshit, but your employer isn’t a winner here either, they’re also paying out $600 a month for your $1200/month health insurance.
The real problem here is why the fuck does health insurance cost as much as housing in this country?
The biggest kick in the balls is that insurance still doesn’t cover shit. There’s still co-pays, tons of things that aren’t covered, out of network, maximum use of services, and anything large will almost certainly be denied by default. The co-pays alone are often as much as the service should cost.
Health insurance is a parasite. Profiting (massively) by being a gatekeeper to good health is pure evil.
Dr. Glaucomflecken’s Youtube Skit series on US healthcare has really shown me how fucked up it is…
Sure, the Canadian government is stealing my paycheque, yadda yadda yadda. Still my health, dental, life supplemental insurance plan costs $800/year and most routine stuff like checkup exams, basic drugs, basic procedures, is free or is in the tens of dollars that I need to pay.
I haven’t been to a dentist in 8 years. I’ve only recently been in a hospital because my back gave out and I was stuck on the floor. Dont let anyone take away that healthcare, dont become like us. This is misery for no reason. My fucken teeth ache.
I cracked off a piece of my teeth but it doesn’t like cause immediate pain and my last visit cost me several hundred dollars even with my “dental plan” that my employer didn’t provide me a policy number for. And I still need to save up for my wisdom teeth to be pulled cause they are rotting in my head and cause my jaw to lock up.
Yeah the world doesn’t realize how fucked the US is for health of its citizens.
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Its unnecessary, we have the technology and the means to just help.
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Line must go up or rich people angry.
Or more. A lot more.
I pay $700/mon for a family for health only, not including prescriptions, dental, or vision
Employer contribution is $1600/mon
That’s insane
I’m surprised large companies haven’t pushed back on it.
I didn’t know much about that side of the insurance pyramid, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything about the companys part fighting it in the news.
It usually looks like cutting plans, and the adoption of high deductible plans
Or more.
Just doing mine now (open enrollment time). No changes to what I had this year, but had a 20% price increase to just under $600.
My employer is paying $3200 for my coverage (family plan, to be clear). Companies should be in wide support of universal healthcare.
Some companies are self insured and merely pay a health insurance company to administer the plan. They take all the excess and dump it into an investment account where they can profit off of the excess. It’s possible that their employer is coming out ahead.
Housing costs more than $2000 a month now 😭
To be fair, health insurance is equally expensive in Europe. We just discount it a lot for low income families and above average pays a lot more to substitute that missing money.
health insurance is equally expensive in Europe.
Source?
My paystub :'( about 1k in germany
Then that doesn’t sound “equally expensive” if it’s discounted for everyone that needs it discounted.
Not when the option in the US is “then don’t have healthcare”
Full ACK :)
Your employer is likely paying another $600/mo for you as well, and singles/couples working for the company are actually subsiding your threesome.
The insurer-first system a stupid scheme that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
This is correct.
In the US during WW2 employers couldn’t keep employees because of wage competition. This made war production extremely inefficient and slow. The War Labor Board instituted wage ceilings for critical jobs. But, they allowed employers to compete with health benefits. Employment and healthcare became intertwined.
After WW2 the War Labor Board was dissolved and wage ceilings removed. FDR, who’d proposed and implemented The New Deal and led us through WW2, proposed the Second Bill of Rights aka the Economic Bill of Rights:
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Employment
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An adequate income for food, shelter, and recreation
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Farmers’ rights to a fair income
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Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
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Decent housing
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Adequate medical care
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Social security
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Education
This would’ve disaccociated employment and medical care. However, FDR was labeled a socialist and authoritarian, demonized. We the People bought into the propaganda.
That’s how it’s been for eighty years: The leftists propose the same platform FDR did. And, they’re told to shut up for disturbing the idiots running in fear of one bad choice or another. All that’s changed is the efficiency and effectiveness of the hegemony’s propaganda.
big government guy proposed big government solution to unintended consequence of bad decisions by big government, is confused when people don’t want more big government meddling.
the real problem here is that people forgot about what the issue was and how it happened, and years later are clamoring for government to “do something”. and extra unfortunately, at this point it may be too late for any solution other than letting government just take control of all of it; i can’t see any other way to get all the shitty government decisions and interventions rolled back.
The US incarnation of capitalism has obviously failed. I’m all for revolution. But, I’ve no doubt that the vast majority of society would willingly give up their freedom, once again. Humans have been doing the same thing for millennia.
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If you make less than $103,000 / year (family of 3) and pay more than 9.5% of your household gross income on healthcare premiums, you will likely save thousands by using your state’s healthcare marketplace. You are likely eligible because they fixed the family glitch, now the 9.5% applies to the cost for family rather than individual coverage as before.
Although the subsidies will likely end after 2025 if dems don’t retain a majority in house/senate.
It could easily save you thousands of dollars a year… Like I’m 100% of it… Ask me how I know, lol. Please look into it. I think you have to wait til open enrollment in December? or when your healthcare renews annually. You might be able to do it immediately due to “hardship”. I don’t know the specifics of your situation but I’m pretty sure you and a lot of other people here would save a lot of money. I would talk with a healthcare_gov or your state agency agent, they get paid by the gov’t to help you through it at no cost to you. You can also get a low HDHP and get your own HSA to essentially pay no taxes for medical expenditures. I hear fidelity is good, due to no fees.
Speaking of which, is there an active financial advice community on Lemmy (like that old site that should not be named) like /c/financialplanning or something like that?
I realize I’m in /c/antiwork so it goes without saying it’d be nice if we have universal healthcare without all this baloney money being siphoned to these criminal insurance companies. Just trying to help anyone out in a similar situation. ;)
Incredibly helpful information. You don’t need to preface for a shitty situation you did not create or have the power to control. You’ve your part by providing care and empathy in the form of advice that might help some of us.
We got to use what we got for now. Can’t survive on wishes and wants.
The private insurance industry is going to price themselves out of existence eventually. People are going to realize they can save an enormous amount of money by having the government act as payer for their healthcare instead of corporations trying to turn a profit. Healthcare already does not lend itself to distribution via capitalism, you don’t show up to the ED and wave money around to bid on your bed. It should be based on need.
As long as people are allowed to go into debt, this industry and others like it will exist forever
Still waiting for that. Been my hope since I went on this $250-500 a month health insurance journey during my first job in 2005.
It’s likely 1/3rd to 1/2 of what the insurance actually costs.
Insurance numbers in the US are all made up bullshit numbers designed to funnell money from the working class to the rich.
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As an employer I would LOVE to be shed of this system. I have no reason to be involved in the health care of my employees, and given the state of health care in America there is literally no upside for my business. It’s all bad.
Unfortunately our system requires it, though. If I didn’t offer health care and instead just increased the base salary I wouldn’t be competitive. People would think I was trying to pull a fast-one on them, and few people in America know how to get health care on their own. It’s a mess.
Our “lords” have already told us why things are the way they are if you look at the “reasoning” behind why the Senate let the child tax credits expire.
“People wouldn’t have an incentive to work.”
They literally use healthcare to chain you to a job. I have 3 coworkers that I know of off hand that have all said they literally are only working here for the health insurance…
This system can go to hell.
“People wouldn’t have an incentive to work.”
That is just their attempt at rationalization. The real reason is much simplier: money, money, money. Lobbyists, Super PACs and the donor class own our politicians. The rich pay for their political campaigns and bribe our politicians in some interesting and creative ways. For example, giving a politician a million directly is illegal, but if he writes a book and then you have the SuperPAC buy a million copies of the politicians book that is somehow legal.
Can PACs accept foreign money? Or does a politician have to run a little SPAC scam to accept that?
“People wouldn’t have an incentive to work.”
As someone who lives in a place with universal healthcare, I would like to tell these people that many people here still work.
You know, food and shelter are also good incentives.
Hell, luxuries are all that are needed to work. If all my basic needs were taken care of I would still work because I like to travel and drink.
Well the problem is that you are viewing it from a “normal person” vantage… you need to think of your employees as indentured servants, basically slaves you don’t get to actually whip.
Once you get the proper Capitalist vantage point, you realize you can use this “benefit” to squeeze the life out of your employees, specially any of them with Chronic conditions or just a family, as they are hostages to the Health Care you provide!
Extra painful that the current system is biased towards large employers. Easier to absorb that overhead if the business is large.
That’s right. For a company greater than 50 employees the insurance companies charge a group rate that is the same for everyone. Fewer than 50 and each employee is billed on their and/or their family’s merits.
Because I have fewer than 50 employees, most of my family employees use their spouse’s insurance from larger company than mine. And there’s little I can do about it.
For my small business I’m just as screwed over as the employee. If I hire a guy I can’t (and don’t want to) ask him him or her health questions, but because I pay half of my employee’s insurance I’m hiring with an unknown cost component. That employee might have a costly pre-existing condition for all I know.
Best thing that ever happened to me was almost dying. Now all of my healthcare, everything, is taken care of.
That’s how fcked the world is.
This is madness. Where I’m from, we have a nationalised healthcare system and yet my employer offers private healthcare coverage for no additional cost to myself (free)!
yeah that sounds like an employer actually providing a benefit in exchange for you working for them
You’re dumb as a rock. And so is the yurobro.
In those European countries the employee often costs 20-30% more than their stated salary.
There’s absolutely no such thing as “my employer gives me extra insurance free of charge”. It’s not free. They’re paying for it.
As I worked for a small startup I know all the numbers. I received X gross on paper, the company had expenses of 1.2X, and I got 0.6X on my bank account. Oh boy, gotta love those “free” health insurances, unemployment benefits, paid sick days etc.
That’s wonderful. Where is this, if it’s not too personal, if it is, no worries.
The United Kingdom (and hilariously, it’s an American company that employs me and gives me private healthcare).
Private health care is very different in the UK. If you’re ever in serious ill health, or need anything remotely risky private healthcare will tell you to go to the NHS. It’s mostly GPs with nicer offices and NHS consultants moonlighting.
😂. I’m happy for you. Eat. Them.
i get the feeling that society really doesnt want to spend the money to give people healthcare.
It’s 2 fold, one party doesn’t want to takeaway private insurance because of the donor money. The other doesn’t want “inferior” people to get health care.
A double edge sword unfortunately.
Well, at least here in the USA, we already are spending the money. Getting worse results than the rest of the world and spending more money on it. Because private health insurance is a joke and we’re all the punchline.
Most Americans want universal healthcare. The problem is that we have a broken and corrupt system where our politicians are bought and owned by the donor class and lobbyists
I “want” universal healthcare… but I know the government will screw it up. There is just no winning.
It’s bullshit, but your employer may be covering your insurance almost completely and that 600 goes toward your family. At least that’s how my insurance works. Again still bullshit that health care costs that much and then they won’t cover shit when you need it.
that’s an interesting (and stupid) possibility that I hadn’t considered
My options at my last 3 jobs have all been more than 1400/month.
Do you think your taxes would go up $17k per year if America got universal healthcare? I’m going to say probably not.
I’d gretly prefer universal healthcare.
Insurance is extra expensive when you have a family in the US. I’m single and my monthly cost is less than $100 a month. Having a family is more expensive for everything.
But WHy dON’t YoUNg poPLE wANT tO sTarT a FaMILy?!?!
Universal healthcare would probably not cost you that much with taxes. But instead a private company gets to reap all the benefits of your money.
And then deny your access to lifesaving health care, don’t forget that part.
Private Company gets all your money and then gets to say “no, you really don’t need that operation, rub some dirt on it and take a salt pill” and then proceed to Scrooge McDuck into a pile of money.
The concept that you have coverage for a thing and it gets denied is baffling to me. How are Americans not trading in the streets over the systems your parents built?
Because the system of oppression is so perfect here that nobody dares step out of line. The average American is 1 month away from being homeless. And you can be fired from your job at any time for any reason. Take time off work to protest and an asshole cop decides to arrest you? You get fired from your job, then you get a criminal record making it almost impossible to find a new job. With zero safety net that’s it, you’re on the street for the rest of your life.
Sometimes your medical team decides you need a procedure, but some guy with a spreadsheet or an AI that is wrong 90% of the time decides you don’t.
