I'm grateful to the fates that my Stage IV breast cancer recurrence at least waited until I'd aged into Medicare (Original A/B, not that MA mess) which, with the supplement (F) that I added, has kept me from getting lunched by medical bills. And I even get the $15K/mo drug that keeps my mets cells asleep (for now) free through the PA program at the phrarmaco that makes the drug, since I know how the healthcare game is played in the US.
But not every patient is me, or has a me on their team. YMMV is the watch-phrase in American healthcare, on both cost/coverage and outcome. All because we keep telling US employers to foot the bill, which puts them in the way of looking for ways to spread the risk and cost, so then hello, HDHPs! High deductible plans are often referred to as "consumer directed" plans, ie CDHPs, but I ain't buying it.
I did, for a bit, back in the '08-'09 time as the conversations that led to the ACA kicked off. However, my own lived experience had me shift away from thinking that high-deductible plans were any kind of a broad solution to healthcare coverage for most Americans, particularly in the current age of massive income inequality and wage stagnation in most industry sectors.
tl;dr = US healthcare coverage, always a cobbled-together mess, has only worsened with the rise in high-deductible plans. Meanwhile, health insurers are throwing glitter on every earnings call. 'Murrica! Oy vey.
I'm grateful to the fates that my Stage IV breast cancer recurrence at least waited until I'd aged into Medicare (Original A/B, not that MA mess) which, with the supplement (F) that I added, has kept me from getting lunched by medical bills. And I even get the $15K/mo drug that keeps my mets cells asleep (for now) free through the PA program at the phrarmaco that makes the drug, since I know how the healthcare game is played in the US.
But not every patient is me, or has a me on their team. YMMV is the watch-phrase in American healthcare, on both cost/coverage and outcome. All because we keep telling US employers to foot the bill, which puts them in the way of looking for ways to spread the risk and cost, so then hello, HDHPs! High deductible plans are often referred to as "consumer directed" plans, ie CDHPs, but I ain't buying it.
I did, for a bit, back in the '08-'09 time as the conversations that led to the ACA kicked off. However, my own lived experience had me shift away from thinking that high-deductible plans were any kind of a broad solution to healthcare coverage for most Americans, particularly in the current age of massive income inequality and wage stagnation in most industry sectors.
tl;dr = US healthcare coverage, always a cobbled-together mess, has only worsened with the rise in high-deductible plans. Meanwhile, health insurers are throwing glitter on every earnings call. 'Murrica! Oy vey.