Quote:
Originally Posted by The Batlord
Yeah, if that happened in the States, and you didn't have health insurane, you'd be ****ed. Like, move back into your parents house or be homeless kinda ****ed. I've never been sure if Universal Healthcare would work in the US, but I think we need to at least be able to have a real public conversation about it without half the population crying "COMMUNISM!"
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Well when I was 18 I was still on my step father's health insurance plan which was pretty decent because he's a state employee, now though... well lets just say Nevada isn't exactly swimming around in a lot of money right now. I'm still on the health plan, but it's pretty much been reduced to a credit card with like $1200 on it for medical emergencies or other things like prescriptions and the such. It was incredibly annoying a few months ago when I needed to go for a vision test to update my prescription and they wouldn't accept the card because it didn't have my name on it. It was easier to just pay the $100 for the eye test than try to figure out a time when my step dad could make it, and with the office being closed on the weekends and Fridays (like a lot of private practices around here).
If I grew up in this country I would probably be a lot nicer to the system, but it's so completely alien to me. I never feel comfortable when I go because I expect I'm going to get some massive bill, but the last medical emergency I had was only $120 after insurance took care of the rest, so it could certainly be worse. That said though, if the US were to adopt some kind of system similar to Canada or the UK, be prepared to see a decent amount of your wages garnished. It's dependent on how much you're making, like when I was 15 and working in my first lumberyard, I was only working 16 hours per paycheck (8 hours each Saturday), so my deductibles were only like $20. Fast-forward to 2006-2008 when I was working full time and making about $1200 each paycheck, and it looked more like $950 by the time it was done with taxes, even more if it was a Union dues paycheck. Still, having that security net to fall on is nice.