- Messages
- 4,479
- Location
- Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, USA
I pay about 15% of my paycheck, my employer pays an equivalent amount as well. I hold my own insurance through my employer, my husband has his own employer insurance that he covers the children under. His plan covers more items, but is more expensive in both cost and copays than mine.My wife and I have enjoyed many a visit to Uncle Sam's shores, but we have always agreed that it's not a country that you would want to be poor in. I have been following these comments on insurance health care and in honesty, I find it painful to read.
You can call it political manipulation if you like, but having no worries of a medical bill certainly helps you sleep at night. For those interested this is what it costs to have a National Health Service:
An employee is deducted 12% of their wage for every penny above the first £162 (per week) of their pay. On top of this, employers contribute 13.8%. The median wage is £27,195. That's somewhat lower because part time workers are included, but working on that figure the cost would be.
Employee £27,195 less £8,424 (that's the annual figure of the first £162 per week.) 12% of £20,771 = £2492 per annum.
Employer £27,195 13.8% = £3,753. Total cost £6245. (employee & employer costs combined.)
At the current rate of exchange that's $8300 US or $160 per week for full, complete, medical cover.
There are a few variations and there are exemptions, the main ones being, those in full time education, the elderly and those out of work. If any of those categories have unearned income though, they will become liable to pay. The reason for that is to stop the wealthy from transferring funds to family members.
Remember that the above figures do not include income tax.
Having me under my own insurance saves about 3k a year.
With our "good" insurance we had while I was treatment, we incurred debt. Some of this was health expenses, but the rest was because in the US you can't get loan deferments for cancer treatment. I was suddenly out of work, with no pay, no unemployment, and no disability with a young child for 3 years. Thankfully we owned a home at the time that we took out a home equity line of credit against. We cleared the loan when we sold the house, before the payback period.
We don't own a home now, and not having an asset to borrow against worries me. We did add insurance under my husband that will pay out a lump sum if one of us gets seriously ill, and that makes it easier to swallow that we aren't sitting on a bunch of equity.
But I'll have to say that it hurt when we got the check from the sale of the house and it was half what it should have been just because I got cancer. I'm lucky to have the best husband in the world; so he'd never think this way, but I still sometimes get angry thinking about how much money I cost my family. It would've paid for a chunk of a college education.