Bay Area family of four: $1870/month on Kaiser. Gold something plan. And this is just a pay to play for the extortion racket we call health care providers. And we live in east bay zip code which makes The plan cheaper than e.g. being in 95030 or some other South Bay zip codes. And it’s anyways cheaper than equivalent BlueShield of CA plans.

So yeah, I break 10k (for a family) before anyone even gets to visit a doc. Where they slap you with extra $$$ on anything.

We should mandate that everyone has to pay for their own health insurance (e.g. healthcare). Put a full stop on employer provided health plans. And have people actually pay from their hard earned $ to the health providers for the right to show up. Now for a lot of people who get benefits through employment, the absurdity of the cost isn’t visible enough to actually care / do something about the situation.

Or we could push for the us to actually join the rest of the world with public healthcare for all. If this is done, then we can push for the cost of a doctor visit to be reduced to a normal price. There is no reason for having the extreme pricing in healthcare except that it’s treated as a business. If most European countries can manage a public healthcare system and not have a doctor visit cost 1k+ , then it can happen in the US. But a mayor shift need to happen and it won’t as long as people refuse to accept universal healthcare

I don't get health insurance through my employer if that's what your implying. A family is different than an individual though, and that total cost is not per individual.

I'm a type 1 diabetic, and the costs for all the supplies related to it are easily over 10k a year. Just the insulin is ~250$ / bottle, and I use somewhere in the range of 5 vials / month, so that's $15,000. Admittedly, I've changed insulins recently, so the price may be reduced, plus the insurance company certainly isn't paying the full cost. But still, that's just ONE of the supplies for my diabetes.

And then I had an operation this year (unrelated to the diabetes.... kind of), so that adds another 10,000$, give or take.

My brother in law is taking a $750 monthly diabetes medication in the US. That same medication cost 50e here in Spain. There is no reason for the price in the US except to get as much $ as possible.

> How does anyone pay 10,000 a year on health care

$832.21 X 12 -> $9986.52

Because these are summary statistics drawn from a non-uniform distribution.

If one in 10 people is over 70 and some others get serious or chronic illnesses earlier in life, the mean cost per person could easily be much higher than the median cost per person.

I suppose, but why not report the median instead.

Because it’s much more difficult.

The mean can be calculated from the total: just divide by the population. That’s what the commenter to whom you replied did. The total was probably easy to estimate, as the largest healthcare providers’ revenues are in their public filings.

Calculating the median requires individual data. That is much harder to get because, in many cases, no one except the patient has the data.

Because medians don't let you extrapolate total costs or how population-wide changes will affect total costs. The tails of the distribution matter when we're talking about public health.

20 physical therapy visits alone could cost somewhere close to $10k when billed to insurance. A drilled cavity can be $500. Have a wart removed? $500. It's so absolutely easy to hit $10k in a single year.

Insurance premiums

I don't pay anywhere near that much.

I just checked and including my employer's contribution, my health insurance (1500 / 3000 family plan) has premiums of $32,000 / year.

And how much is your employer kicking in?

None.

Your claim was how does “anyone” pay $10k for insurance. It doesn’t matter what you pay. The answer is older people in high cost of living places.

https://www.state.nj.us/dobi/division_insurance/ihcseh/ihcra...

And insurance is just insurance. out of pocket maximum is usually $10k+, so if you do need care, add that to premiums.

I did put a qualifier on that statement though, I said "unless". I doubt the average person is having constant surgeries, procedures, expensive tests or expensive medications every year.

Like I could see something happening in a year, but not every year.

Even without any healthcare events, anyone over 50 is facing close to or over $10k per year in health insurance costs.