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In the US, why doesn't a personal savings account make more sense than health insurance? (piefed.social)
submitted 5 months ago by 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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[–] 2 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Like, insuring a 2 million super car shouldn’t be on everyone, but one of the largest parts of auto insurance is people needing healthcare after. Take that out of the equation and auto insurance becomes more sensible.

Yeah, I talked about how assets are different than things we need, like health...

because they negotiate prices that aren’t available to the public, often an order of magnitude lower.

They say they're doing that...

But it's a scam where insurance says without insurance it would be 20k, but they got it down to 10k. They pay 5k and put you on the hook for the other 5k.

You think you just saved 15k by having insurance, but if you didn't and got a 20k bill, they'd offer to "discount" due to no insurance and say it's 10k.

That "discount" is the real price, the only reason anyone mentions 20k is so insurance seems effective.

If you can't pay the 10k, it might get lowered again, but eventually they'll sell the 10k debt to a collector for like 5k or even less, and the collector will ask for the total, but will accept anything over they paid from day 1.

It's a scam...

You just don't understand it, that doesn't mean it's not a scam, even if that explanation wasn't enough and you still don't understand but I give up on replying again.

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  • [–] 0 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah, I talked about how assets are different than things we need, like health…

    The original comment references luxury assets like supercars. In the USA, the average adult needs a car of some sort to function in society, and often cannot afford the unplanned purchase of a reliable used car (let's call that $15K). Collision insurance that will cover most of the cost of a replacement car is a reasonable value for many people, and the insurance company doesn't have any special leverage like access to massive discounts on replacement cars (they may have access to modest discounts on repair services, but nothing like what health insurance has).

    You just don’t understand it

    I think I made it pretty clear I understand that for-profit health insurance is a scam because providers overcharge anyone who doesn't have it to an extreme degree. That's not the case for pretty much anything else.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    I think I made it pretty clear I understand

    You've made it clear you think you understand...

    But that apparently just means you're unwilling to learn.

    Best of luck, feel free to keep replying, someone else may help

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