I am in Europe so I can’t relate, since insurance here is not tied to your employment. They screw us over by raising the wages tied to inflation, and yet we still don’t have enough at the end.
we have a song about how it goes here in sweden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqwWRsqclgc
Rents increase, so the government raises the rent subsidy (crucial for poor people), and then of course they have to raise the taxes.
End result is that landlords get our tax money.
it’s why some places, like mine, give raises in July but “open enrollment” is on Sept/Oct and premiums go up in Jan. You “feel” it less.
Hint: if your raise is less than inflation and premium increases, you got a pay cut not a raise.
What’s the average price for an insurance for a middle class person living in a big city?
Does families get an all-in-one or it’s different for any single person?
What’s the average price for an insurance for a middle class person living in a big city?
In the USA, shit’s so convoluted that it’s highly debatable whether average price is relevant. But, also, good luck finding someone willing to track that info down, assuming it even exists.
The costs depend on what state you live in, whether you’re getting insurance through your employer or the open market, whether you’re getting family or individual coverage, and a myriad other factors.
For insurance through your employer – The employer usually gets a group discount on a set of plans that range from shitty coverage to slightly less shitty, a range of costs based on how much the employer is willing to pay for each plan as a “benefit” to employees, and whatever other add-ons the employee selects (ex: dental, vision).
I don’t have average data, but I’ve paid as little as $50 a month for employer sponsored insurance, but it was the shittiest shit tier of insurance that was basically worthless (and that was over a decade ago). For my last few employers, the employee paid part of the plans seemed to be in the $200 to $400 range, again depending on the plan and the options selected.
For open market – This is even more complicated and complex. But basically everybody can get it through some version of what’s known as Obamacare or ACA. Costs and plans available vary from state to state. Technically, individuals are on the hook for the entire cost of the plans. In my area, when I last checked, there were a few options as low as $350 USD (but they were utterly terrible) to $2,500+ USD for ultra-premium plans. The caveat here is that the cost of these plans is partly based on income. So, in my state, basically everybody making below $60,000 USD (or so) gets a discounted rate (or rebate on taxes at the end of the year), such that people in the lowest income bracket can get health insurance for free or close to it.
Does families get an all-in-one or it’s different for any single person?
Cost-wise, there’s a different price for individual insurance versus family coverage. Usually the family coverage is priced so that it’s a bit cheaper per person than getting separate individual plans, but even then there are exceptions. Family plans tend to have a shared max out of pocket and deductible (which are basically the annual limits on what you pay) that’s higher than the individual plan.
I know you’re asking about the US, but for comparison:
In Sweden it’s a flat 3.55% of your labor income, so about €100-200 a month for most people, and usually caps out at €200 for people doing tax planning. In either case, it’s paid by your employer so you don’t have to think about the cost.
Out of pocket yearly maximum is €145 for Healthcare and €380 for prescriptions (which was raised 30% this year by the far-right coalition 😑). Dental care is also mostly covered by insurance, but there’s a co-insurance between 50% and 15%.
I live in Sweden too (not swedish), but I actually didn’t know about the cost up here.
Yeah, it’s something that people don’t really think about.
För klarhet, fackordet för skatten är arbetsgivareskatt. “tax planning” är skatteväxling. “out of pocket maximum” och “coinsurance” är engelsk fackord för högkostnadsskydd.
Compare with this nightmare: https://youtu.be/-wpHszfnJns
Yeah, I followed you there.
Honestly, I thought it could be higher. Then compared with US it really depends of how much they earn, and some has a really high salary there.
Counting on the average I guess welfare does better, but I’ve on my side only Tuscany in Italy (which is between the best five), and Stockholm. Coming from Sicily probably I would have rated walfare a bit worse 😕.
Yeah definitely, the US system is very dysfunctional. A good amount of money simply gets lost in the bureaucracy.
Insurance companies are massive conglomerates that have to negotiate deals with tens of thousands of providers, millions of products, and millions of customers. Every Healthcare provider needs dedicated bureaucrats that can navigate the sea of paperwork. I don’t have the data in front of me, but I believe the US government pays about the same amount of money on healthcare as the Swedish government.
Any difference between what a Swede pays and what an American pays is just pure waste. A wasteland of pointless jobs.
There’s definitely some fuskbolag and dysfunctionalities in the Swedish system, but for the most part, Swedes are not wasting money keeping dozens of massive office towers filled with bureaucrats, and Swedes have a happier life because of it.
With regards to salary, all Americans already pay 4% off their paycheck for Medicare. So Swedes don’t have lower salaries because of vård välfärd - at least not directly. But that’s a complicated discussion, and we’re already seeing American salaries fall drastically due to geopolitical factors. There is some aspect of the US having a monopoly on cloud services, where many top European tech works have been bought up and poached by Silicon Valley. There is also the risk of the American economy overinvesting into AI companies, with hundreds of billions of dollars already spent, and further trillions planned.
