Can I take the time to complain?
First, let me say that I'm late in my working career and health Care is probably about as expensive as it's going to get for me. I (and my wife) have a number of conditions, and we fall outside any income, employment, or age related criteria which would lessen the cost.
So far this year I've had 2 sets of surgery under general anesthesia, my wife only the one, but she has had three visits to the emergency department of our hospitals here, one resulting in emergency surgery and a few days in ICU. She is also a cancer and serious car accident survivor and will be having surgery for an unrelated adenoma next month. Oh, and aside from numerous GP and specialist appointments we have had an emergency physician come to our house once, and two trips by ambulance to hospital. And did I mention that I'm on three drugs and my wife about 7 (mostly relating to her chronic pain).
And are we paying through the nose for this or what?
Health insurance: $4400
Govt health levy $2000
Hospital visit copay (each) $500
Surgical copays so far $2500
Drug copay $3000
Specialist and GP copay $2000
Ambulance $500
ER and home visits $0
Anesthesia copay $0
So that's about $14,400 per year. There's some safety net stuff that we'll fall into later in the year so it will probably be several thousand less, and we didn't do ourselves any favors in picking surgeons on their reputation rather than on their price on staying in private rooms in the hospitals we like the best (if we were sufficiently motivated we could have easily found someone and somewhere with a zero Copay).
The only good thing about my expenses this year is that I've paid most of the copays early in the year. So if I have a few heart attacks, strokes, or broken limbs, it will all be almost $free.
I'm sure there are a lot of you falling over at reading the huge expense of health Care here. I guess that's what you get living in a country with a small population and very little bargaining power with drug and medical device companies. Oh and added to that, all of my surgery and much of my wife's recent stuff has been determined to be "elective" or "cosmetic" so the Co pays are drastically higher.
I also didn't realise that our health expenditure actually reached double digits when expressed as a percentage of our gross household income. It's almost as much as our delightfully small mortgage retirements.
First, let me say that I'm late in my working career and health Care is probably about as expensive as it's going to get for me. I (and my wife) have a number of conditions, and we fall outside any income, employment, or age related criteria which would lessen the cost.
So far this year I've had 2 sets of surgery under general anesthesia, my wife only the one, but she has had three visits to the emergency department of our hospitals here, one resulting in emergency surgery and a few days in ICU. She is also a cancer and serious car accident survivor and will be having surgery for an unrelated adenoma next month. Oh, and aside from numerous GP and specialist appointments we have had an emergency physician come to our house once, and two trips by ambulance to hospital. And did I mention that I'm on three drugs and my wife about 7 (mostly relating to her chronic pain).
And are we paying through the nose for this or what?
Health insurance: $4400
Govt health levy $2000
Hospital visit copay (each) $500
Surgical copays so far $2500
Drug copay $3000
Specialist and GP copay $2000
Ambulance $500
ER and home visits $0
Anesthesia copay $0
So that's about $14,400 per year. There's some safety net stuff that we'll fall into later in the year so it will probably be several thousand less, and we didn't do ourselves any favors in picking surgeons on their reputation rather than on their price on staying in private rooms in the hospitals we like the best (if we were sufficiently motivated we could have easily found someone and somewhere with a zero Copay).
The only good thing about my expenses this year is that I've paid most of the copays early in the year. So if I have a few heart attacks, strokes, or broken limbs, it will all be almost $free.
I'm sure there are a lot of you falling over at reading the huge expense of health Care here. I guess that's what you get living in a country with a small population and very little bargaining power with drug and medical device companies. Oh and added to that, all of my surgery and much of my wife's recent stuff has been determined to be "elective" or "cosmetic" so the Co pays are drastically higher.
I also didn't realise that our health expenditure actually reached double digits when expressed as a percentage of our gross household income. It's almost as much as our delightfully small mortgage retirements.
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