While $20/month for health care is ludicrous, the writer's $215 claim is also at the high end for individual coverage. Most privately carried health care plans easily available to individuals cost between $70 and $140 dollars for one person. The bigger issue is that copays and deductibles will quickly escalate to the point of no being affordable should anything significant actually go wrong - private insurance at the moment (probably until Obamacare kicks in) is really only an effective coverage if you can afford to pay thousands of dollars a year worst case scenario.
Anyway, the main point of the bit still stands. Just the difference between premiums and what it would cost to actually get care was a little off.
Is this true in all cases? I believe my folks are paying over $1k per month for health insurance, implying more like double the writer's claim per person.
$70-$140/mo for private health insurance sounds like what you pay if you're young and completely healthy.
>> easily available to individuals cost between $70 and $140 dollars for one person
...as long as that person has never had a blip on a health check in the past, and is under 30.
$215 is nowhere near the high end for individual coverage, even for high-deductible plans. Think multiples of that number. I wouldn't be surprised if there were people paying over $1500 for a high-deductible plan for one person.
I assumed younger. Perhaps I shouldn't have assumed male, but most fast food workers seem to be younger. I figured the vast majority would be under 30.
Most of the plans I've looked into have fine print that makes it more likely that they'll deny coverage than try to charge someone more than $300 month in the sub-30 male cohort.
Obviously I'm ignoring family/dependents.
I'm wasn't trying to suggest that health care was affordable, or that the kind of coverage someone in the position mentioned could get would be sufficient - at best it would probably make them go bankrupt a few month later in most cases - Just that a large number of fast food workers could probably get insured for somewhat less than the assumed estimate. Presuming no diabetes, cancer, other major issues.
Obviously if you were born in 1960s or 1970s then your base rate goes up to 120 - 400 range instead, and people no longer young are obviously likely to be less healthy to begin with, which makes it improbable that you'd get near the low rate.
Anyway, I wanted the takeaway to be that regardless of even being able to get insurance for less, it's worthless because if anything goes wrong maximum out of pocket would still ruin anybody in that kind of work position, not to mention the spiral effect of missing work, not that I obviously don't really know how much it costs to insure older people or women.
Most privately carried health care plans easily available to individuals cost between $70 and $140 dollars for one person.
Another vote for "You are incorrect and are very likely basing this on your sole experience of shopping for a young, single, no kids, healthy male's insurance."
Anyway, the main point of the bit still stands. Just the difference between premiums and what it would cost to actually get care was a little off.