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In the US, why doesn't a personal savings account make more sense than health insurance? (piefed.social)

submitted 2 days ago by CptHacke@piefed.social to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

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Hear me out on this, please.

Let's say that I spend $5k on health insurance in a year, but don't go to the doctor or have any medical issues in that year. Where does my money go? It disappears. I basically just gave away my money, and received nothing in return. However, if I took that $5k and simply put it into a personal savings account instead of giving it away to a health insurance provider - that money stays right there if and whenever I decide to use it. It even collects interest.

I realize that with a health insurance provider, you're (supposedly) getting discounted rates on medical services - but if your money is just disappearing into thin air if you don't happen to need those medical services in a given year, are you really saving money? It just seems like a really big scam to me - what am I missing?

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[–] LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

Out of pocket cost of treatments internationally should be available with a bit of digging. I believe that compulsory insurance also can make things cheaper, because the insurance company can negotiate with the weight of their customers.

Of course, US health care is a corrupt scam from what I hahave heard.

But for example, for a 3h joint surgery, general anaesthesia, related lab work, an MRI and CT scan plus various bullshit like normal xrays and a couple of days of stay I paid (or would have paid, if arguing insurances didn't agree on the blame somehow) a bit less than 10k€, maybe around 7k? Western Europe, a couple of years ago. Similar figures are probably available for standard procedures, I'm just too lazy to look them up right now