The company that provides LWN's health insurance just sent me a helpful thing about how a very small number of employees, those with expensive chronic conditions, drive the bulk of insurance claim costs.

We are far too small to have such a plan, but bigger companies pay their claim costs. As these companies lay people off, surely they wouldn't target the few employees that, we are being told, are the reason their health-insurance costs are going through the ceiling. The ones who most need the insurance they would stand to lose.

Right?

https://www.anthem.com/employer/the-benefits-guide/the-high-cost-reality-what-2024-trends-mean-for-self-funded-employers

@corbet honestly, and I say this with genuine empathy, the health insurance situation in the US is _absolutely insane_.

@corbet I worked at a place that had a similar plan, and someone got cancer. As we all know, trying to not let cancer kill you is expensive.

No one complained, but when premiums came out the next year, they went up a lot. And we all knew why.

What a terrible thing to do to people

@corbet the US health system is a satire on health systems.
as long the US keeps the incentives to exclude those that actually need it, it cannot progress.

@ljs @corbet I honestly do not understand how people's first contact with U.S. healthcare does not radicalize them toward socialized medicine. It is absolutely mad how much of our life is dictated by health insurance, dealing with health insurance, etc.

Just thinking about it raises my blood pressure...

@jzb @ljs @corbet there are pills for this, however you should fight to see a cardiologist (likely with a copay at the specialist rate) before you pay 4x the price for a generic as we do here.

@ljs @corbet I can say for myself I had no idea it could be different until I spent time in UK and Germany. It really is crazy here but I think most people in the US don't realize it could be different. My wife is British and the US system has blown her mind since we moved here to the US. She always says that there is no way we will stay here once we get older and I have to agree.

@pdp7 @corbet yeah the NHS is a mess (bureaucratically) but the care is great and there's no such thing as being refused for anything even vaguely serious

@ljs @pdp7 @corbet even Canadian healthcare is better, with all its warts and with our doctors constantly running off South of the border for the huge bucks.

@monsieuricon @pdp7 @corbet right the UK is a mess too, but it's a mess where you will get treatment for conditions _eventually_.

Not 'oh you aren't insured sorry no' or going bankrupt from an ambulance etc. the crazy stuff I hear

@corbet wait, are you saying the insurance company gave you this information? How is that legal? Even in US there has to be some protection surely?