OK? There are less expensive plans out there that have lesser coverage. Pointing out that I can't afford the cost of an average airplane doesn't mean I can't afford *any* airplane. Companies offer plans based on what the market desires, not some sort of arcane formula which will force the companies into offering products nobody can buy. If the average monthly payment for family health insurance is $1200 then apparently that is what the average family can and does pay.
Furthermore, you pointed out that renting a decent apartment at $700 a month was apparently worth more than obtaining health insurance. You could perhaps find a tiny terrible apartment at maybe $300 a month (a single room rat-trap probably) and not have to worry about your child dying to the flu. But no, a choice was made there.
Wow. You know, it's really, really easy to judge someone when
you have no fucking idea what their financial situation was at the time. You don;t know how much he was making. You don't know how much his insurance premium would have been. You don't know the available rents in his area. You don;t know how old the kids were, why the wife wasn;t working, or why they had two car payments. You don;t even know why he didn;t get insurance from his employer.
And yet, despite your utter lack of
any knowledge of the situation whatsoever, you're somehow able to play Captain Hindsight and tell him what he
should have done, what he
could have done, and tell him that his lack of insurance was a personal choice.
What an
amazing gift you must have, to be able to make financial judgments without the use of any numbers whatsoever and without knowing even the most basic facts! Please, oh wise guru, tell me what I
should be doing with my money! Clearly you don;t need to know my income, where I live, where I work, the number of dependents I have, or any other information, you can just tell me what I can do anyway!
I wonder what options are out here in the real world?
I just went to Bluecross.com and grabbed a quick quote for a family plan with 2 28-year-old parents and three children aged 5, 6, and 7. I have no idea the actual ages involved so I just made some up - but you shouldn't mind that, since you're making up
all the numbers.
The absolute cheapest plan is $283. It has an $8000 deductible. Maternity costs are not covered at all (and having a baby is expensive). Everything is $0...
after that $8000 deductible. Brand prescriptions aren't covered at all - have an illness that requires a new drug for treatment and doesn't have a generic available? There are lots of those...too bad though, not covered.
The rest of the financial picture is unknown, of course. 2 car payments, rent, supporting 3 kids, himself and his wife...that's pretty pricey. Where I live, the cheapest apartment you can get would be a $500/month studio...but it wouldn't be legal to have 3 kids in a tiny studio. For shitty apartments in crime-infested areas, you're looking at $800/month for a 2-bedroom, at least $900 for a 3. Food for three people? Well, my minimum monthly budged for food is $350 for two - but let's say he's a better/more frugal shopper than I am (good luck, I said minimum budget for a reason, NICE food comes out of the disposable budget) and say he can feed 5 people on $400. We'll say his power bill is the same as mine - that's another $150 on average. Two car payments and insurance? What, $400 for the two payments if they're inexpensive cars, plus another $200 for the insurance? He said it was 50 miles to work...so they'll be spending at least $100 on gas every month, even where gas is cheap.
SO, without any discretionary spending, we're looking at $2050/month...and we haven't even added in a phone or the health insurance or clothing or any sort of costs for the kids yet.
That's about $24,600 a year. The health insurance would add another
$3420 per year...and that's with the absolute cheapest plan,
and it assumes he never actually uses the coverage. Doctor visits, prescriptions, everything still costs more beyond just the premium.
I wonder how much he was making, take-home? I've made less than the $30,000 per year take-home that he would have needed to make just to keep the bare necessities running at several jobs.
Insurance is pooling a steady stream of income to offset a risk which can be mitigated by financial aid. Those who contribute are eligible to draw from the pooled funds should some relatively rare event occur. The entire system depends on most contributors not using as much money as they pay in, but rather offsetting the risk of a possible payment they wouldn't be able to cover on their own.
It isn't just sticking your hand into other people's pockets without contributing yourself. Crashfrog, you fucking moron.
WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK TAXES ARE?
Your taxes support the fire department, and the police department, and the roads in your area, and schools, and a thousand other things necessary for modern living.
You never actually use the vast majority of them. Everyone pays into fire/police protection, but they only get used rarely. Everyone pays into road maintenance, but you only drive on a small percentage of the roads you help pay for. Everyone pays into the public school system, even if you don;t have kids attending.
Society
runs on having many people pay a little for things that benefit all of us.
Yet for some reason, assholes like you think that health care should be different. If your neighbor gets sick, you can catch it, same as a fire that threatens your neighbor can threaten your home. And of course there's that pesky moral issue - where
not providing universal health care according to
need instead of according to
ability to pay means that you are literally condemning poor people to die simply for the crime of being poor. You're condemning people to choose between letting themselves die, or going to the doctor and saving their life only to owe massive debt for the rest of their lives.
And guess what tax-funded single-payer health care does?
It saves money! It spreads the risk to everyone, everyone pays according to what they can actually afford with a progressive tax plan, and everyone is given care according to what they actually need instead of just what they can afford,
just like the fucking police and fire department and schools. It lets the single-payer entity bargain for better drug prices. It lets the single-payer entity streamline health care costs and eliminate unnecessary redundancy - like having 4 competing hospitals from different insurers each with duplicated facilities like MRIs that barely get used.
Every other first-world nation spends
less per-capita on health care than the US does, and with objectively better results. And, of course, they get to sleep at night knowing that their health care isn;t tied to their employment, that if they get laid off they don;t have just 6 months of expensive COBRA coverage until their out of luck. They get to sleep knowing that everyone in their nation has access to health care, regardless of abilitiy to pay, just like they all have access to police and fire protection.
And instead of trying to support a fiscally more responsible and ethically necessary single-payer plan, you instead lash out at someone who said he couldnt afford health care with
assumptions pulled from nowhere but your own ass about his real ability to pay.
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