Jeff GeerlingJust finished applying for 2024 health insurance through the healthcare.gov marketplace.
Good news! This might be the first year I pay less than $30,000 for medical coverage! (Assuming I stay out of the hospital).
Oh, and why does a pharmacy own a health insurance company now? How is that a thing?
What's the rationale behind a company owning doctors, pharmacies, and mandatory health coverage plans 🤔
And why does it rhyme with honey?
bls@geerlingguy For being such an totally awesome country, US healthcare strategy and implementation are totally bonkers.
Michael Cook
Ernie Smith@geerlingguy Absolutely bizarre how integrated CVS is these days.
@ernie They stand to make boatloads upon boatloads of money, of course. Walgreens probably kicking themselves for not buying hospitals, doctors, and legislators at the same rate.
@geerlingguy I dunno if you’ve ever listened to Business Wars, but they just had a season about this exact topic that does a great job explaining how this integration actually happened. Long story short: Walgreens actually bet on being a pharmacy chain (and still sells cigarettes), CVS decided it wanted to dominate healthcare (and doesn’t).
Gen X-Wing@geerlingguy Because merging and acquiring is much quicker and effective if you want to drive up profits. Competition is bad for profits.
System is bonkers:(
Also take care and hope 2024 brings nothing more than boring routine check ups!
Compuguy 🐱@geerlingguy You’re not referring to CVS Health, who owns both CVS Pharmacy, CVS Caremark (PBM) and Aetna? They definitely don’t rhyme with honey…
Kevin P. Fleming@compuguy @geerlingguy At least they were stopped from buying Humana, so now Cigna wants to do it and they own Express Scripts but don't own Walgreens.... yet.
@kevin @geerlingguy Yeah. That’s a good thing….
minecraftchest1
Robert @ Tech Addressed@geerlingguy that's like for a while I worked for a medical records software company that was owned by a health insurance company that was owned by a hospital.
Rory@geerlingguy I know that in Ireland, doctors aren’t allowed to own/part own a pharmacy. Shocked at your premium. My company pays something like €1300/year for my insurance
Silymartin 
@geerlingguy rhymes with irruption
Curioso 🍉 🇺🇦 (jgg)Having a healthcare system based on organizations that benefit from you being really sick as much time as possible is beyond crazy.
Free markets are not always good for consumers
CryowattI'm pretty sure you can trace literally every problem in the world back to late stage capitalism.
Nagaram@geerlingguy
This is among the biggest reasons I don't think I'd ever be able to freelance or run a business if just myself. My Crohn's meds are only this cheap because I'm in private health insurance (some weird rebate program that explicitly states private healthcare only).
I'd hate to rely on my fiance for healthcare, but if they get a nursing job I'll be pretty set with hospital insurance.
René Moser (resmo) レネ@geerlingguy we pay $1200 per month in Switzerland for 2 adults and 3 kids for the compulsory health insurance. 10% more than last year.
ahoyboyhoy@resmo @geerlingguy in NYC we pay $1300 for two adults, one child for the worst insurance our marketplace allows. There are of course subsidies for households that show low net income on their taxes.
b4ux1t3 
#1️⃣@resmo @geerlingguy we pay about 1k a month for two adults and two kids, though my employer pays another 1k.
So, 2k a month.
Then we have to pay copay, or "cost sharing" with the insurance company.
Does Switzerland require you to pay for you healthcare in addition to the money you've already paid for healthcare?
@b4ux1t3 @resmo @geerlingguy yes, you pay the first 500-2000 costs by yourself by contract which influences the monthly fix cost. Usually you do 2000 unless you know you will have higher costs in advance like chronic illness or give birth
jens@geerlingguy maybe consider moving to Europe 😅 but you may lose your USA typical polarwhite teeth over here.
You would pay less than 1000€ a year. Including hospital fees.
Janik 
@geerlingguy I pay ~200$ a month here in Switzerland and probably get a better coverage too.
Benedikt@geerlingguy I don't know, if I should tell you, that general health insurance in Germany would cost max ~900€ per month...
@Bene @geerlingguy beat the drum! Healthcare in the US sucks! Sing it loud and clear, please.
I don't think any country gets things 100% right when it comes to Healthcare, but I can think of at least one that does it nearly 100% wrong. ;)
Cymphoni Fantastique@geerlingguy everybody should use the public services as much as they can. I know sometimes you really can't, and that's okay.
My hope is that if enough people use it, they'll be forced to improve it AND it'll reach social security status where it's political suicide to even think about getting rid of it. (It's kind of there now, but not really. The target is still social security and medicare/aid).
Adam Bolte@geerlingguy Madness! A quick search indicates that that's currently more than half of the average annual salary nationwide across the U.S.
It looks like I pay $12.99 AUD per year for ambulance cover, and just use public services for most things. They are just about on par with private services in my limited experiences, at least for anything sufficiently important to matter.
DrRac27@geerlingguy thanks for the reminder to be glad about not living in the US.
I have Chrons Disease too and I am paying less than 100€ per year for all health stuff combined. In the US I would probably also pay more than 30k because I get Entyvio (2500€ per dose alone for the med, every 8 weeks) and have other health issues too. For most doctors and therapies I don't even know the prices because of course my insurance covers it.
US politics are really fucked up in every way...
I have Chrons Disease too and I am paying less than 100€ per year for all health stuff combined. In the US I would probably also pay more than 30k because I get Entyvio (2500€ per dose alone for the med, every 8 weeks) and have other health issues too. For most doctors and therapies I don't even know the prices because of course my insurance covers it.
US politics are really fucked up in every way...
Jeffrey@geerlingguy 30k a year. Wow. Just paid my mandatory health insurance here, with hospital plan: 30 EUR / 3 months. I hope politics eventually come to their senses and fix that system in the USA.
Jan@geerlingguy I am truly glad I live in Europe, the taxes might be higher than in a lot of the US states but at least I wont go broke for basic medical coverage in most European countries.
Fratm@geerlingguy Kaiser Permanente enters the chat..... Lol