Hear me out on this, please.
Let’s say that I spend $5k on health insurance in a year, but don’t go to the doctor or have any medical issues in that year. Where does my money go? It disappears. I basically just gave away my money, and received nothing in return. However, if I took that $5k and simply put it into a personal savings account instead of giving it away to a health insurance provider - that money stays right there if and whenever I decide to use it. It even collects interest.
I realize that with a health insurance provider, you’re (supposedly) getting discounted rates on medical services - but if your money is just disappearing into thin air if you don’t happen to need those medical services in a given year, are you really saving money? It just seems like a really big scam to me - what am I missing?
From what I understand, aside from what everyone is saying, the insurance companies end up not lowering prices but raising them. The hospital essentially makes up inflated pricing (the $600 aspirin joke) and then the insurance company fights for a discount of that price. It’s scumbags ripping off scumbags at that point, but I’d almost be convinced that prices would be lower if there was no fat cow insurance company to scam out of as much money as possible.
Out of pocket cost of treatments internationally should be available with a bit of digging. I believe that compulsory insurance also can make things cheaper, because the insurance company can negotiate with the weight of their customers.
Of course, US health care is a corrupt scam from what I hahave heard.
But for example, for a 3h joint surgery, general anaesthesia, related lab work, an MRI and CT scan plus various bullshit like normal xrays and a couple of days of stay I paid (or would have paid, if arguing insurances didn’t agree on the blame somehow) a bit less than 10k€, maybe around 7k? Western Europe, a couple of years ago. Similar figures are probably available for standard procedures, I’m just too lazy to look them up right now