Doug Winterburn wrote:
Lew Hodgett wrote:
"Doug Winterburn" wrote:


I'm one of your "in the middle" people. I planned ahead - invested
10%
of gross for 35 years and have insurance that I carefully shopped
for.
The wife had two major medical events in '05 and '06 and I had
surgery
for colon cancer in '05, all adding up to a large 6 figure billable
total. The insurance copays weren't overly burdensome. The
insurance
company didn't try to get out of anything and there are no max
coverage
issues. The insurance premiums run a little over $800/month which
is
easily doable if you plan ahead.

Consider yourself lucky you had 35 straight years to build a nest egg.

"Luck is where preparation meets opportunity."

In many cases a lengthily undisrupted period to build a nest egg was
not a possibility for many reasons.

For a family earning say $48K/annum or $4,000/month gross, an
$800/month health care premium or 20% of gross is probably a real
stretch to handle, especially if you throw in say 35% for ALL taxes,
and 30% for housing.

That leaves only about 15% or $600/month to cover all other living
expenses.

Highly unlikely that scenario is going to fly.

BTW, the 6 figure unpaid bill referred to previously, was an
accumulation of the remaining copay after the insurance company had
paid.

Why would anyone buy an insurance policy with a 6 figure copay,
deductible or a ceiling which would leave you that unprotected? One
needs to examine the terms and conditions before selecting a policy.
....

All it would take in total liability w/ a fairly typical 80% copay would
be otoo $500K in billings to leave $100K.

That's why one indeed needs that catastrophic policy that does cover the
big ticket items that ordinary/routine policies leave wanting.

Unfortunately, it's all too easy any more to reach upper 6 or 7-digit
expenses for extensive treatments (and Lew, before you start, I've never
disagreed that costs need some sort of containment, only that I don't
see how anything so far proposed is going to help in that regard other
than transfer one form of cost for another disguised one).

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