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.
The same exact thing applies to education. No one owns the knowledge that they gatekeep. It’s ALL of ours, gifts from our predecessors, exaxrly the same as we hope to achieve for those who come after us. Restricting access is irredeemably immoral, who is anyone to deny someone their birthright? It is contrary to our existence, in fact, it could be argued that very few things are more deadly and detrimental than withholding our capacity and depths from each other.
The banality of evil. Evil made mundane is still evil nonetheless.
Or rich people fund fascism and overthrow democracy as soon as the people start demanding anything better than what they have. Economic democracy?
They’ll literally burn the entire planet down first.
This is like 1000 people. That’s it.
If you want to do everyone a solid, when we eventually get cancer from their polluting, let’s all just all take one piece of the garbage out with us. They’ll actually BE a future then.
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.
ACA institutionalized the health insurance industry as having some broad legally protected powers to fleece the American public. And there is no recourse or alternative besides getting healthcare outside of the country.
Pharma industry is the second parasite that enjoys similar legal protections.
Medical Community sold their asses but especially doctor types… Decent doctors don’t survive anyway, but this is standard for any industry. Worker needs protects if we expect them to do their job properly… Ain’t nobody got energy to battle the orphan crushing machine 40 hours per week
Then, we have federal government that’s essentially enabling all of this due to the above clowns capturing regime whores in congress.
This is the standard regime model and most industries are going this way if not already there…
Oil, banking… Tech is trying it too, the 🤡 companies “want to be regulated”
Corpos like having a blank check from the state to fuck the peasants.
It ain’t just US issues, apparently UK parasites are getting that spot quicker than the US nepo babies.
The fuckening will only gets worse.
Here comes the political brainrot…
You do understand that these discussions can be had with out left right circle jerk?
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.
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”
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.
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.
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.
