Is Health Insurance Really Necessary?

[sunshineblue]

Also, not sure why someone downvoted this. This is literally just what worked for us. I apologize downvoter if you would’ve preferred us to have spent 1/3 of our yearly income in the past two years by using the exchange instead.

 

[janey0731]

@verbum Honestly you are financially better off paying cash prices right now. I’ve definitely been in your boat and we’ve flip flopped between insurance and no insurance. Luckily we never had anything major during our no insurance phase. Currently I’m 30 weeks pregnant and have only hit $27 of my $5,000 deductible. I’m not sure how that’s even positively yet. And the doctors seem very greedy to try to get money out of you at the OB (global billing) before actually billing anything.

Now my husband’s uncle had a pretty bad accident last year and he didn’t have insurance. He was riding a bicycle on a steep hill and crashed and needed surgery on his neck. He owes the hospital hundreds of thousands of dollars since he didn’t have insurance.

I haven’t ever looked into it, but has anyone used that Aflac supplemental health insurance? Can you use that if you don’t have insurance at all?

Honestly insurance is definitely for the what ifs, but if it’s food insurance you definitely know which way to go. I don’t think there’s much you can do like you’ve stated. We’ve definitely skated by without insurance and urgent care was a good part of that. They definitely deal with lots of cash payments. And they can sometimes off medications they have in house at a much lower rate. I remember I had insurance, but my husband didn’t (I think this was before we were married) we both got a staph infection while traveling. He paid less at urgent care for treatment than I did with my insurance. They gave me a prescription, but gave him the medication for like $10.

 

[gjoseph77044]

@verbum What are you going to do if there’s a catastrophic accident or illness?

 

[wukong]

@verbum No freaking way should you be without insurance with kids. In 2019 my then 9 year old put the battleship piece from the Monopoly game we were playing in his mouth and accidentally inhaled when he was laughing. Got stuck in his esophagus. Had to be airlifted to another state to a hospital that could handle it. That twenty minute helicopter ride was $84,000. Total with surgery at the hospital plus ER at the community hospital was over $100,000. Not to mention if your child breaks an arm or leg, which my other kid did in 2020, another $20,000+. Kids have accidents, don’t let one put you into bankruptcy.

 

[alanfriend]

@verbum You are exposing your family to catastrophic financial loss + not being able to see doctor's who don't work without insurance in the event of a perilous event. Nobody has a date on the calendar for when these events occur. WHEN you need insurance, you'll regret not having it.

 

[geoffrey1778]

@verbum Get the insurance. You just simply don’t know what the future holds. I’ve been blessed that I haven’t had any health issues in the past 10 years. 3 months ago I was involved in a vehicle accident that led to hospital bills totaling over 15k which does not include medication, physical therapy and any future health visits that I might need down the line and I still have bills medical bills coming in every once in a while. My out of pocket was 6000. It’s been paid and now I only have to deal with the co-pays with some of the specialists.

It’s expensive, but it’s there for when you least expect it.