(03-29-2020, 01:21 PM)hazard Wrote: Also relevant, a spike of 40% in healthcare insurance premiums would mean an increase from about 110 euros a month to 150-160 euros a month. If they actually manage to push that through to the market, which is not that likely because the insurance system in the Netherlands is fairly well monitored and under government oversight.
Yes, I'm paying about 1 500 euros per year for my health care insurance and after the deductible (which is a yearly amount), as long as the (legally mandated for minimum but actually extensive cover) contract says the insurance has to cover it, it's covered. Which means that I could get the disease, end up in the ICU for several weeks, recover in a hospital bed for a few more weeks, require further weekly home care and/or medical supplies for months and still pay less than 2000 euros for my health care costs in total that year.
And no doing silly stuff with trying to transfer the costs of any treatment performed during 2020 to 2019 or 2021 either so the insurance company makes more money. The government has opinions on that.
Now, I'm not sure about the USA costs, but if you're uninsured IIRC 2000 dollars is what you'd pay for one day of care in a standard hospital bed to recover from minor stuff that needs no specific protective gear and protocols. And that's if the hospital is cheap.
And the social security laws would ensure that I'm not going to suffer majorly from loss of income due to lack of ability to work during my time spent ill or recovering either.
The USA could really use a universally covered health care system of any stripe, but it needs much, much more than just that.
In the US, receiving a bill for $40,000 would be on the low end, with supposedly good insurance plans. Adding a 40% increase in premiums on top? A lot of people--those who can actually get insurance-- are going to start considering going without.
Unfortunately, there are some people who wring their hands about all the people who work in the insurance industry who'd probably lose their jobs if we had a single payer system. I just want to own that I care as much about their jobs as they care about my life.
Others say that is about "choice". In practice you don't have that. You either pay for a plan out of pocket, which a lot of people can't, what you can get thru your employer (if they offer one), or diddly squat.
For others, well, they are bound and determined to lockstep off a cliff into oblivion rather than acknowledge that reality isn't in line with what they want it to be. That is how you get states rejecting the Medicare expansion and people seeing that as a good thing.
Universal healthcare would be one step into fixing what is wrong with our system, not the whole solution, but a start.
“We can never undo what we have done. We can never go back in time. We write history with our decisions and our actions. But we also write history with our responses to those actions. We can leave the pain and the damage in our wake, unattended, or we can do the work of acknowledging and fixing, to whatever extent possible, the harm that we have caused.”
— On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World by Danya Ruttenberg
— On Repentance and Repair: Making Amends in an Unapologetic World by Danya Ruttenberg