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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Koligman who wrote (1990)	9/4/2007 5:43:38 AM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 42652

I was under the impression the average large corporation is forking out something like 12k-15k yearly for family coverage. If this family pays 2500 bucks a year for insurance I'd bet every company around would pay their deductible and cut their insurance bill from 5 figures to the 7k this family pays... The Federal Blue Cross rate is probably a good marker. It's $8500. That's the employer and employee share combined. Kaiser is $7300. Maybe some employers pay twice that but I would expect large corporations to have costs closer to the Federal costs.

To: John Koligman who wrote (1990)	9/4/2007 11:03:40 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

Yeah, but oil changes and tires don't run 4500 bucks, which out of pocket costs for a family of four could easily hit year after year... Well, I'm going to have to replace my tires soon and they'll cost over $1200... $4500 a year isn't unreasonable for something that is important. Most families of four pay a lot more than that for groceries, but we don't look for grocery insurance, let alone a large federal government grocery insurance system. Also its a figure higher than what most families of four pay in a typical year. If something happens the family could easily be on the hook for a lot more than $4500, which is why they get the high deductible insurance, rather than just trying to pay everything out of pocket. In either case, this doesn't address insurance costs for the self employed, the sick, and those who are older and lose jobs. It certainly does address insurance costs for the self employed - "and, if I didn't have coverage through my employer, for $219 a month my family of 4 could have good coverage under Blue Cross.". As for the elderly they get covered by Medicare. As for the sick, that's pretty unspecific. Generally health insurance of any type is for the sick (and injured), I suppose you mean something like "those who are already chronically sick and can't work". Generally they would be covered by things like Social Security disability (in terms of getting some income, even if not a very large one), and often Medicaid.