your health insurance premiums are out of control

[dave1215]

because our compassion for end-of-life excesses knows no bounds

Canadian boy moved to US over end-of-life dispute - Yahoo! News
End-of-Life Warning at $618,616 Makes Me Wonder Was It Worth It - Bloomberg

struggling middle class families cannot afford health care
because we throw limitless resources at terminal patients
isn't it time to direct more people towards hospice?

[lukasz]

This is a philosophical problem, not a fiscal one. Middle class families can't afford health care for other reasons. I actually read that whole Bloomberg article. Makes you want to quit whatever you're doing and just go on a permanent vacation, because any day could be your last.

[lavi]

For me, to ensure my family (spouse + kiddo) = $900. Thank Dog it's pretax. What a bargain.

[Nierman]

Between my daughter's tonsil/adenoidectomy, my wife's strange allergy testings and my run-in with bambi on my bicycle, we hit max out of pocket last year before July. That painfully cuts into the bicycle fun fund.

[airedale]

It's a similar story here. We pay $200/month for ours. If we don't have it we get stung for an extra one percent levy on tax.

We likely claim about $50 back a year. The exclusions are outrageous. The only other benefit is use of their dental 'chop shop'.

[caleb]

One thing that doesn't keep me up at night is the cost of healthcare. Costs in all sectors are so ludicrously high that the situation is entirely unsustainable. Either the industry will figure out a way to reduce prices or the government will step in within ten years.

No economy has ever spent over 20% of GDP on healthcare and grown. Thus far the medial industry has managed to frame the issue in terms of coverage, a matter of who gets what. That's not going to be the issue going forward. The issue will become that we, in aggregate, need to shrink the healthcare sector if we want to have a healthy economy. This realization will come on as a force of nature as people age, and one way or another costs will be reduced.

I know I'm taking a pretty confident line, but the American public hasn't been bled this dry by an industry since the robber barons of the early twentieth century.