To be clear, employers subsidize healthcare. They don’t pay all of it.
A pretty standard rate for a family is $1800/month, with the company covering $1200 of that, and you covering $600.
And then when you need care, anything preventative, like normal checkups are free/covered. If the checkup finds something, it’s no longer free. Most plans require you to pay all of it until you reach, say, $8000*. After $8000 in a year, you pay roughly 10%. After, say, $12,000 in a year, all healthcare is covered until January.
The 8k and 12k numbers do not include either the $7200 you pay or the $14,400 your employer pays a year in premium.
So if nothing goes wrong, you pay the minimum of $7200 a year. (And your employer pays $14,400 for you.) If everything goes wrong, you pay $19,200 a year. (And you better hope you don’t lose your job for being sick.)
Everything you’re explaining about the deductible, premiums and out-of-pocket maximum is correct, the only thing I’ll say is the numbers you’re quoting seem pretty high. I work for a company that explains benefits to employees for different US companies, and the majority of plans have an OOP max of around 8k (for families ie employee, spouse and at lease 1 child) with everything being lower for less people. Most plans we work with have a family deductible of around 4k with everything being covered after 8k. Could be explained by working for a shittier company, or living in a higher cost of living area, just wanted to throw in my 2 cents that what you’re describing is definitely on the costlier end of the spectrum.
Are those premiums higher than $1800/month? (With employer contribution as part of that.)
Of course my numbers are from memory and likely aren’t accurate. But I think they aren’t far off my last plan.
To be fair yes, monthly premiums for the plans I was referencing were between 1.7k and 2.3k, with them tending to be right above 1.8, so that definitely is a factor here
For non-Americans, poster above me is talking about the deductable, co-insurance, and then max out of pocket.
The one thing I’d argue is inaccurate is the 10% co-insurance rate.
If you have an insurance with ONLY a 10% co-insurance, you have good insurance. 25-50% is far more usual.
