My typical doctors visit costs me $40 out of pocket. My wife, who sees more specialists and physical therapists because of her scoliosis ends up paying about $250/mo in premiums. I have the 'premium' insurance that my employer offers, which means that I'd pay no premiums for inpatient hospital care. My family health plan costs about $240 per bi-weekly paycheck or $6,240 per year. My employer pays a little over $600 per bi-weekly paycheck for my health insurance or $15,600 per year. Even with that and my employer-sponsored long-term disability insurance, I'm sure I'd still probably be permanently bankrupted if I got a disease like cancer.
My wife and I needed prophylactic rabies vaccinations after a bit of an adventure involving a bat in a guest house. Had that happened when we didn't have health insurance it would have cost $38,000 out-of-pocket. Blood-based medicines are expensive everywhere in the world, but I personally think it's completely immoral that we would even entertain a system which would completely sink someone financially over something like that.
OK so you're paying $15600+$6240=$21,840 a year for health insurance. That is a common rate in the US for family coverage.
You also pay $40 for a $100 teeth cleaning, so you're on the Bronze plan that has a 60% coverage and 40% copay. That's the most common plan.
You mention bankruptcy due to cancer. That is true. If you undergo cancer treatment the billed costs can run over $1 million. And you'll have that 40% bronze plan copay. This bankrupts everyone. Those not bankrupted had plans with 10 or 20% copays because they were of the elite class.
Some consider this affordable and reasonable. I don't, and I think you agree.
You mention your rabies vaccine costing $38,000 in the US and this is true. Did you know the rabies vaccine, without insurance, runs around $400 a dose in most of the world? With a 5 shot sequence that comes to about $2,000.
My wife and I needed prophylactic rabies vaccinations after a bit of an adventure involving a bat in a guest house. Had that happened when we didn't have health insurance it would have cost $38,000 out-of-pocket. Blood-based medicines are expensive everywhere in the world, but I personally think it's completely immoral that we would even entertain a system which would completely sink someone financially over something like that.