Last updated on July 8th, 2018
Step one is to determine how much you are paying for health care. If you do not know I am using examples from the Obamacare program.
I am going to use a family of 4 as an example but by all means use your own numbers.
Find out how much your employer is paying on your behalf for your insurance.
By way of example, a mega-corp I worked at showed in my employment papers that “they” were “paying” $2000 per month for my family health insurance with a $4000 deductible.
If you go to Covered California (the obamacare “insurance”) you can get quotes for a family policy for around $1300 to $1900 per month with a $10,000 or $8,000 deductible (at least at the time I wrote this)
Now let us set aside the endless array of small distractions like office visit co-pays. These numbers are peanuts compared to the big numbers so let us stay focused on the big numbers.
My actual health care coverage cost, for my family policy, is $529 per month with a $2250 “deductible”.
So let us compare the big numbers:
How much you payout for your premiums:
Monthly Yearly program Premium Premium cca1300 $1300 12*$1300 or $15,600 cca1700 $1700 12*$1700 or $20,400 f100 $2000 12*$2000 or $24,000 lhs $529 12* $529 or $6,348 cca1300 = Covered California bronze cca1700 = Covered California gold f100 = Fortune 100 company lhs = What the author pays
Notice that my program saves $9,000 to $18,000 per year. Let us call the average savings $14,500. And that is just on the monthly premium. A 70% savings. You pay your premiums month after month, year after year whether you get sick or not. Over ten years you would be saving $145,000.
Now let us look at another big number which is how much you must payout in a year where you have a major health problem and blow through your deductible.
program Annual Premium + "Deductible" = Total Payout cca1300 $15,600 $10,000 $25,600 cca1700 $20,400 $8,000 $28,400 f100 $24,000 $4,000 $28,000 lhs $6,348 $2,250 $8,598
The savings for my program is around $20,000 or 70%.
So on years with no major medical problems on average you save $14,500 and on years you have major problems you save $20,000.
Now what could you do with this “saved” money? Well you might spend some of it on those “small” expenses like office visits.
I should be able to stop here and you should be convinced, after all, at this point you have all the coverage you need and an extra $10,000 to $20,000 *in-your-pocket* per year that you can spend on anything or save!
Now here is the fact that is really interesting. All the numbers you see bandied about for how much services costs are lies. They are just made up numbers. Your insurance company does not “pay” the amounts listed and they did not “save” you any money.
Here are some real life examples:
The most
average in you should what you
my area ever pay could pay
dental checkup $261 $99 $50
w/xrays
GP Office Visit $156 $80 $40
SP Office Visit $150-$500 $125 $80
Hernia Surgery $16,000 $3300 $1250
Colonoscopy $3,500 $1800 $880
Why can you negotiate such low prices?
Because you are paying cash. The service provider (doctor/hospital) has a army of book keepers working with hundreds of insurance companies trying to manage claims.
With a cash-pay, or self-pay, patient no book keepers are needed and the provider does not have to wait 6 months to get paid.
And you can lower some of these already low numbers even more.
Did you know that seeing your doctor annually is no longer “recommended”.
It was found that people tended to get sick after visiting their doctor due to picking up colds and flus while at the doctor’s office.
So let us look at the big numbers and the small numbers over a 10 year period.
First let us look at your accumulated savings over 10 years.
That would be 10 * $14,500 or $145,000. Can we round that off to $150,000?
So over the 10 year period on average you have $150,000 extra dollars sitting in your bank account that you would not have under the other programs.
So you have $150,000 you could have spent on doctors visits.
I think $150,000 would do a pretty good job of covering office visits and blood work over a 10 year period.
In fact odds are that the office visits plus blood work comes to less than $300 per family member per year. Probably less than $200 and maybe as little at a $100.
A tele-medicine GP visit is generally around $50 and there is no risk of catching anything from others who may have visited the doctor’s office. Blood work is probably around $100.
The key is the magnitude of the difference between the money you have saved on premiums and the “true” expenses.
Say for a family four members have an annual checkup + blood work, and the kids get sick 3 times each requiring 12 extra office visits **per** year:
That would be 4 annual checks ups 4 * $80 = $320 4 annual blood work 4 * $100 = $400 12 extra kid visits for sick kids 12 * $80 = $960 ------ total $1680
Now let’s assume this goes on for 10 years: 10 * $1680 = $16,800
Over 10 years you will spend $16,800 in addition to your premiums.
However, the $16,800 comes out of the $150,000 money you saved:
So $150,000 – $16,800 = $133,200.
You still have saved $133,200 over the 10 year period, or $13,230 per year.
You may be thinking these number are impossible. They are not. They are real numbers that people including myself have experienced first hand.
And you can too.
In the end it comes down to two types of years that you can live. There will be years in which no one gets seriously ill and those years where someone does.
If no one gets seriously ill your total payout is:
no one gets seriously ill
annual
program premiums expenses total
lhs $6348 + $1680 $8,028
cca1700 $24,400 + $0 $24,400
f100 $24,000 + $0 $24,000
If someone gets seriously ill your total payout is:
someone gets seriously ill
annual
program premiums expenses deductible total
lhs $6328 + $1680 + $2250 $10,278
cca1700 $24,400 + $0 + $8000 $32,400
f100 $24,000 + $0 + $4000 $28,000
So is that company or obamacare program really such a good deal?
Is saving 70% shocking to you? Do you still refuse to believe the numbers?
It was shocking to me.
So how do you get these incredibly low rates?
There are groups of people, numbering in the millions, who have elected to leave behind the world of insurance, lies, provider networks, fighting with actuaries, government control, regulations, reimbursements and instead simply pay cash while participating in what have historically been called mutual aid societies or health sharing ministries.
I am a member of Liberty HealthShare. You can read about them by clicking here. I have no monetary relationship with Liberty HealthShare other than being a member and paying my monthly dues. There are other health sharing programs out there. Please be careful. Some of them have been frauds.
But what is key is that these program exist, serve millions, and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that health care in the United States and elsewhere can be delivered at substantially lower costs. These programs have existed for decades.
There is something that all the major health sharing ministries have in common. That is that they require that their members accept Jesus Christ into their heart.
Think about that. The cost of operating a health care system for people who profess to have accepted Jesus Christ into their heart is 70% lower than for those who have not.
If you read my three part series on understanding you will understand how this can be.
At its core the health sharing ministries operate at 70% lower costs because their members are honest. This honesty translates directly into more cost effective care. And more cost effective care leads directly to more productive people and a more productive society.
Honesty really is the best policy.
If you are asking yourself how could anyone possibly be so naive as to believe honesty can be of value in a world as corrupt and dishonest as the one you see around you I have some good news and some bad news for you.
Liberty HealthShare and other health sharing ministries prove that it can be done and show exactly what the benefits are: 70% lower health care costs.
The bad news is that to more fully answer your question will require that I write another article. Subscribe above and you will get a notice when I publish new articles or just check out the Topics page on occasion.