Sushan wrote: ↑31 May 2021, 23:51
...my topic was the importance of having access to some form of health insurance – whether you’re in the United States or elsewhere. Part of this book delves into insurance, and I am experiencing firsthand the importance of having catastrophic health insurance. I’m also a huge proponent of Health Savings Account (HSA) plans.
(Location 145 in Kindle version of the book)
Do you feel the same as the author about health insurance? Have you had benefits because you had an insurance or had difficulties because you did not have an insurance? Has the author been honest or is she trying to market the insurance companies (she has dedicated three chapters of her book to talk about health insurance.)?
I think that health insurance (in a capitalist society) is both a scam and
extremely important/useful. The companies rake in tons of money that some people wind up never even needing to cash out on. They refuse to pay for many things which are so important for people just because they can get away with it. They make the system incredibly complex for practitioners and patients alike, so much that people need to specifically train and continually retrain in order to handle interactions with them for healthcare providers, making the system even more expensive. However, most people could not afford what healthcare they do get without insurance. Insurance makes it so people can pay a few hundred dollars a year but afford a surgery that costs tens of thousands of dollars, and the care team still gets paid. That means the hospital can continue to care for other people. I feel basically the same, though slightly better, about FSA's. You never know how much you actually need to put in. If you don't use enough to reach the carryover limit, you lose money for peace of mind just like with insurance. HSA's on the other hand don't have a rollover limit, I'm pretty sure, so they're better in that regard. That does make me feel better about them, but their availability is so limited and there can be maintenance fees if the account holder's situation changes. In conclusion, capitalist healthcare just sucks.