--- In [email protected], "wayback71" <waybac...@...> wrote: > > When teachers get health insurance for their families as part > of their benefits., it is valued at $18,000 per year for a family > of 4 - at least in my neck of the woods. This is traditional > health insurance, not the disaster type with high deductibles > that you have, Rick. $18,000 is a lot of money for a family - > if it is not part of your benefits package at a job.
To provide some perspective on this, I repeat the numbers I have posted here several times. In the US, as a self-employed person who never actually ever *used* the health insurance I paid for "just in case" (and thus had no medical history that would have jacked up the prices), I paid $600 per month for my policy. Then I moved to France. Not being part of the French system, I had to buy health insurance from a private insurance company. It cost me 240 Euros ($325). Per *year*. For that price I actually received better coverage than I had in the US for $600 per month. In the rare times that I went to a doctor, I never had to pay a penny for it. In Spain it costs me a little more than I paid in France, but not very much more. My yearly cost for full health care coverage *plus* dental is less than what I used to pay in the US per month, without any dental coverage there. Again, no visit to a doctor or dentist has ever cost me a penny out of pocket. Bottom line? You Americans have not only been taken to the cleaners by the insurance companies, the drug companies, and the medical establishment (for-profit doctors, HMOs, and hospitals), you're so *used* to being taken to the cleaners that many of you are freaking out and panicking and running around like crazy people screaming "socialized medicine" as the first steps are taken to *stop* you being taken to the cleaners. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that America is a nation of masochistic retards.
