Planning on dropping Health Insurance. Change my mind.

[MossRoad]

As of 2019 there is no penalty for not having health insurance.

I have had health insurance threw my job for over 4 years, I have only needed it one time when I laid down my motorcycle 3 years ago or so. I知 28 years old and haven稚 been sick in 5+ years, not even a cold, I don稚 use my insurance other than maybe a check up once a year.

I pay around $2200 a year for the lowest plan of insurance threw work. Middle plan is $4200 a year and the most expensive is $6200 a year. For one person. Seems like a crazy amount of money for something I have only needed once in at least 4 years.

You ever do a net worth statement for yourself?

 

[MossRoad]

My mother-in-law is on year 11 of a liver transplant. It's pushing $800,000 in bills. Think about that. $800,000....

Thank goodness she has very good insurance.

 

[Deere Dude]

Who is to say you would not get a multiple number of illnesses one after another. I was in great shape until I him maybe 50+. Then one year I had a hernia, the next year I had gall stones, the next year I had who knows what and then this year I needed a shoulder replacement. I suppose I could have lived without getting any of the stuff taken care of, but my quality of life would have been in the toilet for many years.

Maybe you could wait until you are 50 and hope for the best, then get insurance.

 

[Travelover]

I've heard rumblings that the current administration is going to OK ultra high deductible policies to be sold again, some with maximum yearly or lifetime payouts. As a 28 year old, you could probably qualify, but you'd be on the hook for the whole deductible until the insurance kicked in. So, you'd want to keep ten or twenty grand on hand, just in case, and hope your expenses never exceed the maximum payout.

 

[JPRambo]

I have five brothers and three sisters. My dad was self-employed. Never had health insurance for any of us. He paid the bills for the minor injuries. broken collarbone broken leg and such. It was cheaper for him to pay the bills. I am 62 years old. Last year I pulled the bisept tendon off my right elbow. The bills totaled just shy of $100,000. I paid 1500.

 

[k0ua]

Food for thought ..... just the ambulance bills for an accident can be more than most can pay easily out of pocket. If they call in a helicopter, that alone can be $5,000 or more.

A friend of mine had a truck pull out in front of his motorcycle. Compound fracture of the left leg. The helicopter ride alone was $24,500 dollars. So far the doctor bills have been over well north of $100,000 and he is not done yet. He has health insurance.

For the 28 year old OP. $2200 seems like a lot of money to you. IT IS NOT. A lot of money is when the next time your are injured on the motorcycle, and it is a matter of when not if, you will lose anything and everything you own. Good luck and may wisdom be upon you.

 

[Fuddy1952]

I've always had insurance for everything, but highest deductible I could get. In short time, saving the money will pay that deductible. Pre-Obama care Anthem blue cross...$100/month. After $1500/month. Now thankfully I'm on Medicare.
Years ago a friend asked about health insurance. He was self employed, no insurance. I advised him to have it...even $10,000 deductible. He didn't get it. A few months and a heart attack later he got all the bills...over $500k.
$10,000 is bad...$1/2mil. devastating.

 

[MossRoad]

We had a bat get into our house, didn't think anything of it, as our cats are vaccinated, so I showed the bat out the door. Turns out, one of the cats, less than a year old, was not vaccinated for rabies (mixup in the paperwork, our fault). We played with the kitten for three days before we found out it wasn't vaccinated for rabies. Cat had to be quarantined for 6 months and all 4 of us had to get rabies shots. It was towards the end of the year, and the shots spanned 30 days. So it went into the next year. So we had to pay 2 deductibles. We had high deductible because no one ever gets sick in our family. We were out of pocket close to $15,000 before it was over. The total cost would have been over $45,000 if we didn't have insurance. So we saved $30,000 over what it could have been. Annual premiums were $2400, so we would have had to not have had any health issues for well over 20 years in order for it to work out paying it out ourselves VS taking insurance each year, even with the high deductible.

All it takes is ONE incident to wipe you out financially, or at least put a huge setback in your plans.

Take the insurance.

 

[Jchonline]

As of 2019 there is no penalty for not having health insurance.

I have had health insurance threw my job for over 4 years, I have only needed it one time when I laid down my motorcycle 3 years ago or so. I知 28 years old and haven稚 been sick in 5+ years, not even a cold, I don稚 use my insurance other than maybe a check up once a year.

I pay around $2200 a year for the lowest plan of insurance threw work. Middle plan is $4200 a year and the most expensive is $6200 a year. For one person. Seems like a crazy amount of money for something I have only needed once in at least 4 years.

What you really need is catastrophic coverage. In case you need surgery or something big. Just getting your appendix out will cost $30k. I dont disagree with trying to find an economical option for your age, but at a minimum you should have catastrophic.

If you dont pay, that hospital will turn you over to collections in a month. They also have no reservations about taking you to court and getting your wages garnished just like a child support case. They are fine with putting a lien on all of your possessions..including your tractor! The health system in the US is no longer about providing the best care. It is a capital market like all of the others. They are in it to make money...even if non-profit. They will still come after you like sharks with blood in the water. When they turn you over to collections...the collectors job is just that. They dont want your sob story or all of the health related issues you have gone through. They just want to recover the money for their client. It turns my stomach to think about, but this is how it is.

I have worked as a healthcare professional for 25 years.

 

[dmccarty]

A friend of mine had a truck pull out in front of his motorcycle. Compound fracture of the left leg. The helicopter ride alone was $24,500 dollars. So far the doctor bills have been over well north of $100,000 and he is not done yet. He has health insurance.
...

A few years ago something similar happened to us except we were in a car. The other driver ran the light and it took three surgeries to sorta fix my wife. Many tens of thousands of dollars but we had insurance.

One of the results of that accident was to boost our health care coverage on the car insurance...

Family member had a heart attack and was taken to a small city hospital. The family member needed to go to a cardiac care unit in another city which required a helicopter ride. Heart patients are ONLY transported via copter and they would not do a ground transport. I would not wanted to pay for that trip.

All it takes is some idiot making a mistake and one is in the ER looking at big bills. Last week I was in traffic on the interstate. One idiot almost hit the front of my truck as he merged into my lane and seconds later another idiot, they most have been related, almost hit the back of the truck. WTF! :confused3: This morning another guy almost took of the back of the truck. :confused3::confused3::confused3: Scary thing is that these people WHERE paying attention! :shocked::shocked::shocked: Then there are the people texting or have the phone attached to their head...

Later,
Dan