Before we got on socialized healthcare, our premiums were $700 / month for each of us or $1,400 total / month = $16,800 / year. And that rate was lower because we got on a State sponsored pool. Then we had a $7,500 deductable / person / year or a possibility of spending an additional $15,000 / year or a total of $31,800 just for health care costs that included no optical or dental. Remember now, that deductable was / year and it reset when Jan 1 rolled around. Woe be onto you if you landed in the hospital in the last week of Dec, as you would then be looking at $30,000 out of pocket for care plus insurance premiums if your stay extended into the first week of the year. Now our socialized medicine premiums (Medicare) are $99 and change / month per person. Medicare supplement is roughly $100 / each and the deductable is $0. Medicare is going up to $105 / month in 2013 but it surely feels like a weight has been lifted when we look at $5,000 per year as opposed to what the private coverage was costing.
One thing you soon discover about health insurance companies is that they are really, really good at math. They fully understand that if you have been carrying coverage since you were 40 or so and you are getting close to your 60s, the odds are beginning to tilt toward them actually having to pay out more. So they start really raising rates after you turn 50 and as 60 approaches, they really turn up the screws and actually try to encourage you dropping coverage. I'd shudder to think what private coverage would cost for someone who was 70, or 75.
We starting carrying coverage in our 40s as that was when we began to actually have some assets worth protecting. Of course, every year the premiums increased and we were afraid of dropping ins. because any pre-existing conditions would keep another company from accepting. Every year, they called and increased rates and every year we swallowed the increase. When I was 52, the insurance company called and said they were leaving the state of MT and would no longer be able to provide coverage and it was tough luck for us and just too bad if we had any pre-existing conditions.
When I was a young man, I grudgingly paid my SS and Medicare taxes and complained bitterly, all the while lamenting the fact that I'd likely never see a dime of benefits. Of course, the generation before me said the same thing and they were just as wrong as I was.