Re: I'm ok, thanks.

In article <2jtnc3h9nk74vs8ds12ucr5n016t16e7gf@xxxxxxx>,
Meghan Noecker <friesian@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Wed, 22 Aug 2007 04:12:05 +0200, Green-Eyed Chris
<cwlNO@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


Allow me to throw a number at you. How much is your health coverage
worth to you? A normal working person here is docked about 18-19% of his
paycheck for what might be called basic medical, dental, old age and
burial coverage. Does that in any way relate to the situation in the
States? I'm not trying to put you on the spot, but you seem to be more
aware of numbers than I am.


I have 5 things taken out of each paycheck:

Federal taxes
Federal FICA Med Hospital 1
Federal OASDI/Disability
WA local (not sure what this is)
Employee Copay Health Benefits

In total, it is about 20% of my gross pay.
(the paychecks I looked at ranged from 19-21%)

My benefits aren't too bad compared to many others, but not as good as
they were before the last contract 3 years ago. I pay $20 copay when I
go to the doctor. Some things are covered 100% and some are covered
80%.

Hospital and emergency room have an annual deductible of $200, and
they pay 80% of what goes over. When I went to the emergency room a
coupe years ago, I paid $223, and they paid less than $10. What made
it really bad was that the doctor lied to me and prescribed something
that didn't help. I was there for a pinched nerve in my back. He
correctly told me that the muscles were too tense and had pinched the
nerve. What he prescribed was a pain killer (that didn't work for me),
but he told me it had a muscle relaxer in it, and it did not. It was a
holiday weekend, so I had to wait 3 days to go to my regular doctor,
who prescribed a mild muscle relaxer. I was finally able to relax and
sleep, and my walking was not as painful. I ended up missing 2 weeks
of work (the first 2 days unpaid). Had the first doctor prescribed a
muscle relaxer, I probably would have missed only one day, and I would
have skipped a lot of pain.

While your 20% compares favorably, the devil is of course always in the
detail. I suppose the main difference in the systems is that not every
American citizen is insured in the 1st place. That is not the case here,
but the change is only recent.

My #'s can't really help because I am privately insured and pay about
$750 plus the 1st annual $1350 of my meds which regularly total about
$2450. I won a game of chess with one of Death's apprentices a few years
ago and the bills came to about $67,500. With the exception of a few
taxis, my insurance didn't bat an eyelash and paid everything 1st class.

It is usually a futile exercise for me to try to explain to some people
here, who think that America is the land of milk and honey, just what a
hard working society it really is. I think I already threw this number
out once, but I wasn't sure about it. I recently heard it substantiated
and the average German employee has 40 days of paid vacation a year,
legal holidays included. <don't kill the messenger>
--
Chris
.

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