To be shocked that a US friend is paying $1970 a month health insurance

[crunchymint]

That is her monthly premium for health insurance and is an insane amount of money.

You can have an annual health check on the NHS. You are entitled to one. But it is not promoted because there is no evidence base for it in healthy people

How do you know you are healthy. You don't know what you have and even when you know something is wrong your NHS doctor only treat s one symptom at a time.

My GP doesn't only treat one symptom at a time. But go for an annual health check on the NHS. A friend has done this for years.

I am wondering how come the US gross pay is less than UK pay but judging by this thread the expenses is more?
How does that work?

I choose to reject all NHS free health checks and indeed the regular breast screening is not even worth having for many - read the pros and cons; not surprisingly I have only seen the GP once in 12 years so if I were self paying (instead of paying shed loads of tax) I would be quids in if it meant taxes were lower.

So the US system works out considerably cheaper for us.

How? If you were paying £150 and now you are paying £500 and have to pay on top to see a Dr or get a prescription and you also pay tax?

Question for the Americans.

What do you pay for an MRI scan? What did you pay 20 years ago?

MRI in a private UK hospital is £200 - £600. That includes the report.

MRIs used to be really expensive, but as with any tech it gets cheaper with time.

I am wondering how come the US gross pay is less than UK pay

What makes you say that?

What do you pay for an MRI scan?

$500 around these parts

I am wondering how come the US gross pay is less than UK

Over her you get paid a lot more than you do in the UK, living costs are also a lot lower.

They are only higher if you move to a big city like New York.

Salaries tend to be quite a bit higher in the US (in some professions 30-60% more than in the UK). Health insurance premiums can be paid from pre-tax salary (for employer schemes).

What always strikes me is when some Americans are very anti socialised health care, but don't seem to have a problem with thinking that one's employer should bear the responsibility of providing insurance instead.

My friend’s Obamacare premiums are somewhere around the $2000 per month mark. She's a young healthy active person. Her premiums actually went up when Obamacare came in, and she can’t trust to her good health and go without insurance, because you are fined if you do that.

Premiums were going up faster before obamacare came in. They actually slowed down since then.

Bramble, the insurance is rolled into the employee's 'compensation package'. The premium is money you might otherwise pocket.

It is crazy but shows how expensive the NHS is.
I think people should be told how much each NHS appointment/medicine/procedure would have cost if they went private.
Think people would cut them some slack!

No , in a system where insurance companies call the tune, what the patient wants/prefers/likes is immaterial. The motto is 'prevention is better than cure'.

*I am wondering how come the US gross pay is less than UK pay

What makes you say that*

Dp is a qualified professional and when we have looked at jobs in the US there appears a £ to $ parity. I.e salary £100,000 jobs are $100,000

Dp is a qualified professional and when we have looked at jobs in the US there appears a £ to $ parity. I.e salary £100,000 jobs are $100,000

What does he do?

From a quick google for US salaries...

The median annual Police Patrol Officer salary is $53,001, as of March 29, 2018, with a range usually between $49,491-$57,759

The national average starting teacher salary is $38,617, while the average teacher salary in America (non-starting) is $58,950.

The U.S. Average Registered Nurse RN Salary is $67,930.

I'd be surprised if UK nurses were on £67,930, police officers on £53,001 and teachers on £58,950, but maybe salaries have shot up since I left 10 years ago...

In 2011, we'll before Obamacare came in we paid $400 as the copay when DD1 was born. That was for all pre and postnatal care plus delivery.

In 2013 we paid $1200 for DS as insurance rates were hiked up in anticipation of Obamacare.

In 2016 DD2 was born and the same delivery and care had a copay of almost $6,000.

It's an insane jump in copay for exactly the same event which was treated in exactly the same way. Obamacare has been a disaster and the high premiums is a significant factor behind many people voting for Trump.

I strongly disagree with Obamacare for the simple reason that I don't believe in fining people who can't afford the premiums for not having health insurance while we treat illegal immigrants for free.

Fwiw, our premium is fully paid for by DHs employer and is $2950 a month. At work a family plan is $2600 a month and also fully paid for by my employer. It's extremely rare that this happens.

DH business is self insured. We ask employees pay 10% of their salary for full coverage of them and any of their dependents. We cover everything. It's an administrative nightmare but the only way we can do it.

Here in NYC average wage of a RN is about $110-140k a year for working 36 hours a week. I don't know many nurses in London making £80k+ a year.

Company insurance plans are pretty much the only sane way to handle insurance.

An income that might look gobsmacking in Kansas City MO might not get you very far in NYC though.

Right now my DD2 is renting a bedroom in DC for $1100 per month and sharing a bathroom. She gets fantastic civil service health, vision and dental insurance and her student loan repayments are doable.

I’m a Brit in the USA. We pay $1600 a month for health insurance. My husbands employer pays 60% we pay 40%. We’ve learned the true value of this health insurance over the last 9 weeks. I had a complex c section and then emergency surgery a week later when a massive hematoma burst through the incision. Several days in the hospital plus several weeks of wound vac and home nurse care: total cost covered by insurance $78,843 and total cost out of pocket to me $2,800. PLUS my baby boy was born floppy, needed resuscitation, then diagnosed with esophageal atresia and required complex surgery and a few weeks in NICU and hospital. Two further surgeries and 4 day stays since then too. Total paid by insurance: $228,746. Total paid by us $4,400 so far.
I do not know what we would have done without good health insurance. Yes we pay a lot monthly. But we certainly have got our money’s worth lately.

You cannot compare NHS with private health insurance.

Dp spends over £1200 per month on health insurance and NI contributions. Yet it would appear that his salary is not on a par with his US counterpart.

Even though he pays that out he has to go initially to his NHS doctor to be referred and there lies the problem.
If the NHS doctor doesn't refer you and you don't know what is wrong you are left in this no man's land of being fobbed off with pain killers or told the reason you have lost 5stone in weight in a few months is stress or the pain and bloating in your stomach just needs to be treated with a little as antacid. Constipated have some laxatives. Till you collapse then and only when you are on a trolley in A&E do they put it all together and tell you that there is no hope. Why didn't you see your GP.

I definitely would prefer the American system as the UK one is not working for me or my family.

Conversely the NHS plus some employer-paid supplementary private insurance has worked very well for me and family, at least until GPs became like gold dust in the last couple years. Meanwhile my US relatives avoid medics as much as possible until age 65. One had brain cancer which thankfully was covered by veteran insurance - but physio and hearing aids and rehab after weren't. Others have similar stories of insurance that has kept them alive but little quality of life after.

Does anyone know of good books or articles on other health systems like much of the EU? The German and Norwegian systems seems pretty good but only used them a little for non-expensive stuff.