Yearly deductibles of around $5000 before any coverage kicks in, and co-pays from 10% - 40% after that for covered services.
The lowest priced plan, bronze, has a $5000 deductible and co-pays of 40%!
It might only cost a 27 yr old $130 a month, but they couldn’t afford to use it!
What would it cost that person for a $10,000 broken leg?
$130 x 12 months = $1560
yearly deductible $5000
Total $6560
But you can’t forget the 40% co-pay on your share of the remaining $5000 on the bill after you paid your $5000 yearly deductible.
That is another $2000 for a grand total of $8560 on that $10,000 doctor bill.
Since chances are you won’t be breaking a leg every year, one would have to be a dimwit to buy that insurance.
Great info.
Love your breakdown!
And remember that doctors, themselves, as well as the labs and even the hospitals, will all “deal.” They hate going to collection. All of them will deal.
So you take your broken leg example (read his post, anyone, if you missed it) of a total $10k bill for the broken leg. Lets break that into
For simplicity’s sake $6k for hospital, $3k for doc, $1k for lab.
You go to the hospital billing, find someone High up enough to make decisions, and say, I have $3k in cash right now. Will you take it? I can’t pay more than that, and if it goes to collections yu won’t get more than $1.5k if that. No billing hassles, just close out my account for this cash? They most likely will. Maybe you haggle a little. But it works. D the same with the doc, he doesn’t earn much (docs lose money a LOT), so I’d pay him for the brilliant setting of your leg, $2k. He then has far less paperwork for his expensive staff. Ok, then the lab, who might drop your MRI bill to $600. Your total spent on the broken leg would be — no obamaCare in sight — $5600. With obamaCare you spent $8000.
Free market, baby!! Win, win, baby! No middle men!
Does the Obamacare have the typical...”Above what is customary” fee limits...which if Drs., Hospitals, Labs , Medications etc are charged higher than what Obamacare will pay...then you also have those costs as well.
When I went thru an illness the co-pays and above customary charges were really killing me!....then adding the 20% I had to pay on 80/20 coverage...plus keep up the monthly premiums. An illness has less stress than the constant bills piling up...even with Insurance.