FranLab is getting evicted

[tom66]

$15,000 sounds like a lot for health insurance, but she doesn't specify how many years that will buy.

The US healthcare system is the biggest reason I decided not to emigrate there when I had the opportunity.  It's possible if you're rich enough to buy your way into decent healthcare, but even then there are so many gotchas about insurance that it seems easy to fall into one of the many traps.

[james_s]

For a person her age, $15k is probably for a year of coverage.

[EEVblog]

$15,000 sounds like a lot for health insurance, but she doesn't specify how many years that will buy.

She does, it's just for 2023.

If I were to independently purchase the same intermediate level plan that I had through the ACA and used for over 8 years previous it would cost me $1,100 - $1,300 per month plus stack on a lot of high deductibles on top of that, so I have been doing without insurance and going out of pocket for medical expenses since March 2022.

[SiliconWizard]

$15,000 sounds like a lot for health insurance, but she doesn't specify how many years that will buy.

She does, it's just for 2023.

Ouch!

[Gyro]

Holy cow, it really doesn't pay to get old in the US does it!

The NHS has its critics but it's never let any of my family down when it really counted. The other stuff, I can live with.

[Bud]

The US healthcare system is the biggest reason I decided not to emigrate there when I had the opportunity..

But imagine how much you'd save on Digikey shipping if you had moved ! 

[james_s]

Most of the faults with the NHS and similar systems could be solved by spending more money on it. AFAIK we already spend more than twice as much *per capita* on healthcare as the next highest which is Canada and yet we have large numbers of people without insurance at all. It's easily the largest and most glaring fault with the USA.

[Kasper]

Pay extra for rent to live in safe area.
Skip health insurance to afford rent.
=
Skip health insurance for safety.

[EEVblog]

Pay extra for rent to live in safe area of unsafe city.
Skip health insurance to afford rent.
=
Skip health insurance for safety.

I added some extra detail.
I just don't get it. You can't just keep up the massive expenses and keep on relying on Patreon and Gofundme, this ultimate isn't going to work, the wheels will fall off the billy cart, guaranteed.

[themadhippy]

Most of the faults with the NHS and similar systems could be solved by spending more money on it

Or spend less money by getting rid of the bureaucrats and pointless mangers,during my brief time working for the nhs the maintenance department was around 30 people,only 12 of them carried out any maintenance.

[Bud]

Pay extra for rent to live in safe area.
Skip health insurance to afford rent.
=
Skip health insurance for safety.

I am not sure i understand how these two are related. Steve Jobs lived in a nice neighbourhood and still died of cancer.

[EEVblog]

Pay extra for rent to live in safe area.
Skip health insurance to afford rent.
=
Skip health insurance for safety.

I am not sure i understand how these two are related. Steve Jobs lived in a nice neighbourhood and still died of cancer.

I think it means she prioritised living the lifestyle she wanted at the expense of health insurance.
Sounds like something has recently changed medically and she fears she will need the insurance this year. I hope she's ok.

[SiliconWizard]

Pay extra for rent to live in safe area.
Skip health insurance to afford rent.
=
Skip health insurance for safety.

I am not sure i understand how these two are related. Steve Jobs lived in a nice neighbourhood and still died of cancer.

I think it means she prioritised living the lifestyle she wanted at the expense of health insurance.
Sounds like something has recently changed medically and she fears she will need the insurance this year. I hope she's ok.

Possibly. Unfortunately, someone who hasn't paid health insurance for years, is over 50 and suddenly takes an insurance contract - insurance companies probably can smell this from miles away and make you pay for it.

[Bud]

As a reference here, we choose to pay $400/month for a family of 4 for private health insurance. But of course we get free-ish (1.5% of our income) universal health care on top of that, so we don't actually need it. Private insurance is just nice to have.

I am for some reason sure that you Do actually need it. Private insurance covers many things that vanila universal health care does not.

[james_s]

Some does. My mother has been self employed for many years and for a few years she had health insurance that found ways to weasel out of covering absolutely anything at all over a 2 year period. Once she realized this she dropped them and found something else. Health insurance in the USA is garbage. It is incredibly complex and expensive, with massive amounts of overhead.

[tom66]

She does, it's just for 2023.

That's absolutely mental.  I thought that the $1,100 ~ $1,300 per month was the cost of the non-ideal plan, not the option she was going to take.  Not to get too much into politics but WTF America?

I've worked out the cost of the NHS as a proportion of my paycheque as a high earner, it's about 8% of my salary.  Well under half that figure.  OK I'm a younger individual so possibly the same cost would apply in the US but that is fixed for the rest of my life no matter how much I earn.

[Kasper]

We need insurance insurance.  Insurance against insurance companies that tell you they'll cover everything and then cover nothing.

The insurance insurance company will check the insurance contract and negotiate on your behalf before you agree to pay and then when you make a claim and they try to weasel out of it, they will hold the insurance company accountable.

The end result will be more lawyers and bureaucrats making more money.  Definitely something humanity needs more of.

[/sarcasm]

[james_s]

That's absolutely mental.  I thought that the $1,100 ~ $1,300 per month was the cost of the non-ideal plan, not the option she was going to take.  Not to get too much into politics but WTF America?

When I was in my late 20s with no health issues and was between jobs, it would have cost me around $600/month for coverage so at the time I went without. It only gets worse as you age.

We could save a load of money with a single payer system that eliminates all of the overhead of all these for-profit insurance companies. I read somewhere about someone fretting over the loss of jobs that would occur if the health insurance industry went away. They joked that we could just pay them to stroll through hospitals randomly killing patients and it would accomplish the same thing and probably be cheaper.

[EEVblog]

She does, it's just for 2023.

That's absolutely mental.  I thought that the $1,100 ~ $1,300 per month was the cost of the non-ideal plan, not the option she was going to take.  Not to get too much into politics but WTF America?

Absolutely normal there, all my US friends say the same thing. Most get cover through their employer though, either as part of their package or a reduced company bulk rate or some such. Once you leave your job that ends. All the self employed US people I know say that insurance is brutal. And you have to have it because you have no universal health care. Here in Australia you have private health insurance as a niceity so if you have a long extended stay in hospital you can go to a nice private hospital with your own room instead of in the free public hospital.
My mum had lots of hospital stays in her final years, cost her nothing as a pensioner and she didn't have private cover and still got world class care.

I've worked out the cost of the NHS as a proportion of my paycheque as a high earner, it's about 8% of my salary. 

Australia is 2% of your income if you have minimum private health insurance, otherwise there is an extra surcharge up to 1.5% extra based on your income bracket:
https://www.ato.gov.au/Individuals/Medicare-and-private-health-insurance/Medicare-levy-surcharge/Medicare-levy-surcharge-income,-thresholds-and-rates/
https://www.ato.gov.au/Individuals/Medicare-and-private-health-insurance/Medicare-levy/What-is-the-medicare-levy-/

[EEVblog]

We need insurance insurance.  Insurance against insurance companies that tell you they'll cover everything and then cover nothing.

It's called savings. Smart people put aside some cash each month to go toward emergency expenses like health. Have a different bank account if you need the discipline of not touching it.

[Quarlo Klobrigney]

But you usually have to have some kind of real job in order to save money.


What a lot of people don't realize is that in the US you can go to any ER (A&E) get treatment and ignore the bill. Wash rinse & repeat. A lot if illegals and poor folks use this method.

[Kasper]

We need insurance insurance.  Insurance against insurance companies that tell you they'll cover everything and then cover nothing.

It's called savings. Smart people put aside some cash each month to go toward emergency expenses like health. Have a different bank account if you need the discipline of not touching it.

Just one savings account?  I prefer to diversify.  One more reason I like home ownership, it's like a big piggy bank, can dump time and money into it and hopefully it all turns into savings.

Also creates some opportunities to play with interest rates.  Some of my savings are now paying 2.5x as much as my mortgage is costing!  Bank is essentially paying me to lend them money that I borrowed from them!  Strange times.

[james_s]

We need insurance insurance.  Insurance against insurance companies that tell you they'll cover everything and then cover nothing.

It's called savings. Smart people put aside some cash each month to go toward emergency expenses like health. Have a different bank account if you need the discipline of not touching it.

It sounds good at a glance, but if you have the misfortune of developing some form of cancer you can easily be hit with medical bills for a million dollars or more. Medical expenses are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the USA. I love my country overall, there are many things I think we get right, but health care is not one of those things. It is one of just a few areas where I strongly disagree with the conservatives, I think at least catastrophic health care for all citizens is  fundamental right that any developed society is obligated to handle. Employer provided health insurance is a massive job killing tax on corporations that discourages hiring, and even more so, discourages entrepreneurship because most people are better off sticking with a corporate job they hate. The kicker is WE ALREADY PAY for all the people that can't pay because hospital emergency rooms can't refuse care. It results in a lot of people that can't afford healthcare using emergency rooms which are the most expensive option, because it's the one that allows them to saddle the cost on everyone else. I don't want "free" healthcare, I know somebody has to pay for it, but get rid of all the middlemen, get rid of the for-profit insurance industry completely, then we all pay into a pool that covers everyone. It will result in billions of dollars saved.

[EEVblog]

It's called savings. Smart people put aside some cash each month to go toward emergency expenses like health. Have a different bank account if you need the discipline of not touching it.

Just one savings account?  I prefer to diversify.  One more reason I like home ownership, it's like a big piggy bank, can dump time and money into it and hopefully it all turns into savings.

Yes, I've mentioned this in videos, "being your own bank".
However you chose to save is open to debate, but the simple answer is to save any way you can.
If you live a lifestyle lifestyle like Fran that is hand to mouth with little savings then you have no buffer, and you are at hte total mercy of income sources (Patreon/Youtube only in her case) and chance (illness, eviction, etc).

[EEVblog]

It's called savings. Smart people put aside some cash each month to go toward emergency expenses like health. Have a different bank account if you need the discipline of not touching it.

It sounds good at a glance, but if you have the misfortune of developing some form of cancer you can easily be hit with medical bills for a million dollars or more. Medical expenses are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the USA. I love my country overall, there are many things I think we get right, but health care is not one of those things.

Thinking of worst case examples like that and thinking it essentially "futile" to save is crazy. You can want changes in the system all you want, but ultimately you have to live in the world you have (or move to somewhere more favourable).
Live within your means, save, have contingencies like multiple sources of incomes (or the potential for them), and be willing to pivot if circumstances change.
The more precarious your situation the more you need to have a plan here.
In Australia it's not unheard of for someone to declare bankrupcy due to medical expenses, but it's rare. Last quarter there were 1427 bankruptcies in Australia:
https://www.afsa.gov.au/about-us/statistics/quarterly-personal-insolvency-statistics
About 10% of those are due to medical expenses.
https://www.afsa.gov.au/about-us/statistics/changes-afsa-statistics
https://www.gofundme.com/en-au/c/blog/medical-bankruptcy
So here we are talking maybe 500 people a year in the whole country. But no one gets denied life saving treatment under the medicare system, regardless of circumstance.