Let's play a game
Here is the game: How much do you pay for health care costs and how does it compare to your other monthly expenses?
I’m sitting here thinking about how I have about $50 to last me until Friday when I get paid and how $30 of it needs to go to get gas. As usual, I start thinking about where my money went.
I’m paying $329.87 every two weeks for health care. That is $7,916.88 per year if you are counting at home, kids. I’m married and we have an 8 month old baby girl. All three of us are on the plan and my employer pays 75% of my premiums and 50% of those for my wife and daughter. I’m cheap, the total for me and my employer is about $87/mo, therefore the insurance company is getting a grand total of $1,406.48/month out of me and my employer ($16,877.26/year).
By way of comparison, our two cars cost us $604/mo and the rent is $795/mo. Health care is the second largest monthly expense for us. It makes up about 18% of my pre-tax earnings (but at least I don’t pay taxes on my insurance premiums, right?). The insurance company is actually getting more money than all my fed and state taxes, SS, and medicare COMBINED! Oh, by the way, this doesn’t include dental or vision coverage, just crappy medical insurance with a $25 ded and a max of something like $3,500 out of pocket expenses.
I know there are other health care threads out there but I wanted to put this out there since they usually only hint at the high costs of health care. This thread can give us all an idea of what people are paying and how much of a burden it is on people. You don’t need to give examples that are as personal as I gave, just some round numbers.
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