In ,
Smitty Two wrote:
In article ,
(Don Klipstein) wrote:
In what year? Mere $100 or $200 I can afford - how far back when was
coverage available for $200 per month?
I'm thinking about 10 years ago.
Nowadays, this is much more truly unaffordable. On average, health
insurance premiums have inflated by about 10% per year. That translates
to $520 per month (employer and employee combined), $260 per month
(employee only if employer pays half). And that sounds cheap to me
compared to the cheapest my employer can get as for cheapest HMO plan by
Blue Cross (more like $700 per month for employer and employee combined).
Given my experience, if that modestly-paid employee refused to pay a
$300 hospital bill, then that modestly-paid employee would hear from the
hospital's collection agency. If the collection agency decided not to sue
for so little (I do concede at least somewhat likely), then that
employee's credit rating and credit score would be seriously dinged.
Credit rating? Not an issue. The guy was a vagabond, never stayed in any
given state more than a couple of years. Doubt he ever had a credit card
or a car payment in his life. Wandered off to Nevada after he left here,
then Arizona.
Anyway, he's gone now. Cops called me a year ago and said they found a
dead guy in a van; he had my phone number. I emailed them a picture of
him for positive ID.
So what's the story for someone above this fellow but in the working
class? As in someone more stable and having income maybe 25th percentile
of working legal residents/citizens of USA?
Meanwhile, in other Western countries, modestly paid workers paid
modestly enough to get declared "medically indigent" do not have a special
right to stick county taxpayers with their bills.
(Did the employer paying modestly, or owners/officers/executives
thereof, live in and pay county taxes of a county(ies) whose residents
are better able to afford health insurance than average of those in Cook
County?)
I don't know about the relative wealth of Cook County. Santa Barbara has
some wealthy residents but the county isn't wealthy these days.
Cook County has about 5.3 million people (2008 US Census Bureau
estimate) and median income and median wealth below national average.
If your coworker was working at the same workplace thet you were working
in while working in Chicago, you were working then in Cook County.
Chicago has about 2.8 million of the residents of Cook County, and is
somewhat opposite of a hotbed of mediam wealth and income, whether on
individual or family basis.
- Don Klipstein )