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0 pointsgambiting7y ago0 comments

But if I understand it correctly, for some unfathomable reason American health insurance policies usually have a deductible on them - so even if you are insured, you could still be paying few thousand dollars out of your pocket, no? That's insane.

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gwright7y ago

There are lots of problems with the American health system, but the concept of a deductible for insurance isn't one of them. Insurance without deductible is really a pre-payment plan for "normal" expenses (along with its administrative overhead) wedded to a true insurance plan.

Half (or more of) the battle in these public policy discussions is coming to an agreement on terms.

vinay4277y ago

Lots of insurance plans in other industries have deductibles in other countries, and the US certainly isn't unique in this respect. For example, deductibles are the norm in health insurance plans in Switzerland, which has a system not all that different from that in the US.

snovv_crash7y ago

In Switzerland the deductible is annual, not per visit. Once you hit that cap, everything is free (except voluntary cosmetic stuff).

Thus, insurance actually acts like insurance, like car insurance or fire insurance, there to catch you in a bad situation, not to give you discounts on your day-to-day expenses.

s3nnyy7y ago

It's not like this in the US?

In Switzerland there is a deductible for adults but everything connected to pregnancy and child-birth is deductible-free. Also, kids below 18 yrs old have mandatory insurance that is has no deductible, thus treatments for them are free.

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JauntTrooper7y ago

My wife's C-section delivery in the Bay Area cost ~$2,100 out of pocket. We had very good insurance.

chrisco2557y ago

Bay Area is arguably the most expensive place in the country, so it's not indicative of U.S. as a whole.

pc867y ago

It's much easier to have an intelligent and reasonable conversation about something if you avoid the editorializing and hyperbole by calling everything you may disagree with "unfathomable" and "insane."

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