NY Time’s Paul Krugman conducts Canadian health care poll: "How many of you think you have a terrible health care system? All of you? Bad move on my part”

Here’s a video that you probably will not hear about on the MSM. Maybe he thought the White House press corp was in the audience.

Comments

[Norris Hall]

My wife and I are in our 60's and live in the US
We are self employed
My wife has a pacemaker
I am in good health
We have Blue Shield
The most affordable policy we could find at our age was their PPO 4000/8000 plan
Our monthly premiums are $915 per month..
Our deductible is $4000 per year per person.
So basically we are "self insured" since we pay at least $15,000 per person per year for insurance premiums and health care before we can get a dime of help from Blue Shield.
I've tried everything I can think of to get our premiums down. Even looked into a small group plan.

It's gotten to the point that we've started going abroad for medical care
For the past 4 years we've been saving up all our medical and dental problems and making a 3 week visit to a Thai hospital where the care is excellent and the cost...just a fraction of what I would have to pay out of pocket in the US. For example, last November I had an Endoscopic balloon dilation for a condition known as dysphagia. The specialist in the US said the operation would cost me $2500. (His bill for the 15 minute consultation was $250.) I decided to wait until I got to Thailand and had it done in at Chulalonkorn public hospital...cost $100 including biopsy, (all I needed for ID was my US passport. No questions asked!!)

Our daughter and her husband are young and both work for a company that provides health insurance at an affordable rate. They are happy with health care in the US.

So it just depends on whom you ask.

For us, the US health insurance system is a drain on our resources and we avoid using doctors in the US. It's worth it for us to travel half way around the world to seek medical care. Yet we still have to pay $11,000 in health insurance premiums every year just to "protect ourselves" against getting hit by a bus.

We are seriously thinking of moving to Thailand for 4-5 years until we can both qualify for medicare.