It definitely a concern for me. I bought insurance on the government exchange. It's not really insurance though with an 8k deductible and then they cover 60%.
If I have something expensive and not an immediate emergency my plan is to look into medical tourism to see if it's cheaper.
I have an uncle that lives on the Mexican border in South Texas and goes to doctors and pharmacies in Mexico and says he saves a lot of money that way.
The scary thing is what if it's an emergency say I get into a car crash and end up in the hospital with a $180k medical bill?
I'll be stuck with a bill over 76k. I keep thinking I need to move to a country with a sensible universal health care plan.
Maybe Ecuador or Portugal. hell I don't know, it's a scary thought.
You should double check your insurance plan info, b/c this doesn’t seem right. If you got a plan from the government exchange then it should be ACA compliant. I’ve never heard of the government exchange allowing non-ACA compliant plans. But maybe some states running their own allow non-compliant plans???
If your plan is ACA compliant, then the 2019 max out of pocket expenses is $7,900 for individual and $15,800 family (and lower if you have an HSA plan). Out of pocket max includes the deductible, copays, and coinsurance. So your deductible should be lower than $8,000 and instead it’s you pay deductible + 40% coinsurance up to $7,900 out of pocket. After that the insurance company covers the rest. So if you had $180k from a car cash, your share would be $7,900 not $76k. Unless you’re out of network where the hospital then tries balance billing you. But even then you can negotiate, public shame via the media, etc. if they try charging you a huge amount after your insurance company paid out to them. It would be very stressful, but seems like really low odds to be overly worried about it.
