Comment by swman | Hacker News Reader

Comment by swman | Hacker News Reader

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I resonate with #4. I'm in US, so healthcare is tied to employer. My first job ever paid 12/hr and I did not have health care and it was a part time job, so I'm glad I could rely on my mother's health insurance until age 26 (thanks Obama).

I got my first "real" job after spending a year trying to find a full time job after graduating college, during which I was working that 12/hr job. Even at the new job which paid 80k a year, I had to pay $30/paycheck ($60/mo) towards healthcare. Thankfully never had to use that insurance while I worked there.

Now at my current place I get HDHP (high deductible health plan) and when I messed up my leg the hospital I went to didn't even have crutches in their inventory.. got wheeled out to my car and I had to drive to a pharmacy to purchase crutches.. it was horrible, and I couldn't imagine what this situation must be like for someone without insurance.

Anyway the worst part is that I still ended up paying about $1500 out of pocket, because the 1st X-Ray was covered, but the next two were $600 each....... $40 crutches ..............

I am very sorry for what you went through.

I lived in the US for 6 years, and worked at above average tech company and had excellent healthcare benefits through employer. I must admit it blinds people to say "country's messed up healthcare system is not my problem" because my employer took care of it :-(

Before my move to Europe, I risked living in the US for a month without health Insurance, and I was very anxious about it. I can't imagine what most Americans who don't have that luxury of employer benefits feel daily.

It's silly to think that the richest country on earth by far does not have a decent healthcare system that covers all of its citizens.

>it blinds people to say "country's messed up healthcare system is not my problem" because my employer took care of it :-(

This is something I never understood. If your employer is in power of your health insurance, how free are you?

I'm not saying it's a good system, but I'm not following your logic here. If the government is in power of your health insurance, how free are you? I can change my employer a lot easier than I can change my government.

But when you change employers you risk losing access to your healthcare. Whereas if government pays for the health system you can maintain continuity of care, which can be essential to treat various psychiatric and medical conditions. Imagine if, because you got a new job, your lease on an apartment were canceled and you had to go find a new place to live? That's what our healthcare system is like and it's maddening.

I'm not defending the system, I was trying to point out the absurdity of the parent's statement.

To your point, the affordable health care act addressed the issue with not being able to get insurance due to preexisting conditions. In the US you're required to have healthcare insurance. You can buy it yourself, get it through your employer, or, assuming you qualify, get it from the government.

The point I'm making isn't that you can't get insurance, it's that the insurance you have changes every time you change jobs. At one employer you might be on an HMO plan like Kaiser Permanente and be limited to their providers. But then your next employer uses Blue Cross / Blue Shield or United Healthcare and you can no longer use your Kaiser Permanente doctors. So you're not guaranteed continuity of care, and you might lose coverage for certain optional things if you change jobs. And your costs, which are nebulous to begin with, might change substantially depending on who your employer is. It's a crap shoot.

Also you're not required to have insurance. The individual mandate was repealed a couple of years ago.

You can generally keep paying for the same health insurance for to 18 or 36 months after leaving a job via COBRA except in cases of gross misconduct. It can be shockingly expensive though.

https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/legacy-files/ebsa/abo...

> I could rely on my mother's health insurance until age 26 (thanks Obama)

I don't know the particulars of what law enabled this, but I used my dad's health insurance until I was 26 as well, before Obama's first term.

Are you from Massachusetts? In that case it was Mitt Romney's healthcare reform.

Could have been the loophole for college students, too: I know back in the 90's, you could stay on your parents insurance until 24 or 25 if you were in college. If not, you were dropped at 19.

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