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Comment by makeitdouble | Hacker News Reader

I assume it's unpopular because the vast majority of people in the US aren't earning 100k being employed with decent insurance ?

To your point, rich people in the west have prime access to world class care, and if it's not an emergency they'll fly to wherever they need to get the best clinics they can afford. People flying to Korea for plastic surgery is a thing.

Even at upper middle class you can go through non subsidized clinics if you want prioritized and/or special care.

Being even mildly rich will always help.

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> To your point, rich people in the west have prime access to world class care, and if it's not an emergency they'll fly to wherever they need to get the best clinics they can afford. People flying to Korea for plastic surgery is a thing.

I feel like a lot of such medical tourism has more to do with cost than quality of care.

Another factor is how much the employer pays for this which indirectly leads to a smaller paycheck as well. You are also at the mercy of your employer for what health plans are available. You might have to change doctors of your employer changes who they work with or if you change employers.

Specifically, $100,000 is about 80th percentile income in the US.

For a conversation about healthcare, household income is probably more relevant than personal income (since members of a household usually, but not always, are in the same health care plan)

About a third of American households make 100k a year. Median household is about 70k a year:

https://dqydj.com/household-income-percentile-calculator/

Perhaps the relevant thing is "household where at least one person makes >100K/yr" since the benefits are probably tied to the type of job.

But I suspect the person making the claim was just picking an arbitrary number where most people in that salary band will have decent benefits, and can usually afford the out of pocket portion also

> Perhaps the relevant thing is "household where at least one person makes >100K/yr" since the benefits are probably tied to the type of job.

I think you're reading too much into the OP's off-hand guesstimate. At every company I've worked for, the engineers earning $200K are on the same health insurance as the high school graduate in the warehouse earning $40K/year. The higher compensation makes it easier to clear the deductible/out of pocket maximum hurdles, obviously, but there wasn't a secret insurance plan that got unlocked at higher compensation.

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