Most Americans wouldn't end up paying the 84k. Their insurance would pay for most of that, and negotiate it down further - the other day I was picking up a drug that without insurance would cost over $1,000. I paid $34.
That’s garbage. People without insurance are utterly fucked. The uninsured are sacrificed as a negotiating point against insurers. “List price is $5000. We’ll cut you a deal at only $2000!”
Yep, that's all true. It's worse, actually - the government sets reimbursement rates as well, so when they tell a hospital 'we are only going to pay you 60% of what you charge' what do you think a hospital is going to do in response?
Even if that's the case, unless your deductible is $40k, which I have never seen before, the insurance would still cover the majority of the cost. Plus if you have chronic Hep C, you're likely spending thousands a year as it is and will continue to do so indefinitely.
sure - let's say you pay your own insurance, which most people do not do - let's also say you pay an average of $5,500 a year for it, and have insurance from age 26 to 72 - that's 46 years. So you have now spent $253,000 over your lifetime, which is definitely above the 84k.
If you only have one disease or hospitalization in your life, however, you're rare - this is also extremely unlikely given your chronic Hep C. As an example, the average cost per person in the US, including healthy people, is $10,000 a year, 4,500 more than your insurance cost.
In all health insurance, the healthy are subsidizing the sick. If you have Hep C you are costing your insurer a lot more than you're paying them. If you're a very healthy individual and rarely have any issues, you're overpaying by a lot.
