You could segment them in three sets: well insured, people with catastrophic health plans, and uninsured. Many employers are switching to high deductible health plans and that deductible may be thousands of dollars, i.e. catastrophic plans.
When going to a doctor for a simple diagnosis or bloodwork can easily cost $400 to $1000, many put off doctor visits unless it's an emergency. It can easily become a choice between a doctor visit or a car repair. Preventative checkups are gone and insurance is only something one uses with an emergency room visit or major health issue.
That's a great explanation. It also shows how short-sighted such plans us at a national macro level -- because an ounce of prevention can prevent hundreds of thousands in future future bills.
A perfect example is vitamin deficiency and the very serious effects such deficiencies can have, and how inexpensive the preventative care is.
Maybe a more accurate description of Australia is that it can be free, but you may have to wait for a dr appointment. Or you can go to one of the non bulk-billing doctors and a nice lounge to sit on whilst you wait.
Generally necessary pathology/radiology or routine blood tests are covered by medicare which is paid for by a levy of about 1% on income.
Likewise pharmaceuticals are generally fairly low cost (there are exceptions), being subsidised by the government and for low income or people with ongoing requirements can be free.
Private health insurance is available and encouraged by a decrease in your medicare levy, but a lot of people are finding that it doesn't provide any financial benefit and as we have a very good public health system, does not provide any better health outcome.
Health Insurance is not a major concern in Australia. It certainly is not tied to an employer and doesn't rate on the list of things to worry about when getting a job.
This isn't inflated, really -- Quebec doctors are allowed to charge about the same to the province (depending on several factors, but it's within 2x even for the cheapest option), so it's a reasonable approximation of the costs involved, it's just who pays for it and when.
I have long been against employer provided health insurance. Obama promised if you like your insurance you can keep it. He was mostly correct (if you squint just right there are some minor changes to everyone's plan which you can count as not keeping it), but I don't like my health insurance - but to get a different plan means throwing away the large subsidy I get from my employer to take their plan.
What parts to you find fulfilling? One approach would be to assign a value to aspects of a job you find fulfilling. This could include things like a short commute, casual dress, flex hours, remote work, low politics, good/smart coworkers, and challenging projects. For some challenging projects may be worth a lot, for others remote work to be with family could have the highest value.
Were people going to the doctor and ER less before covid? As employers move to offer only high deductible health insurance, the cost to see a doctor is increasing quickly. When a single doctor visit can cost from $150 to $1500 depending on what they talk about and you're paying that entire amount, one tends to put of seeing a doctor unless it's a true emergency.
In primary school I read anything and everything but my favorite was science fiction. After finishing school, I didn't read as much and noticed something: my creativity seemed less and I wasn't coming up with many big 'next step' ideas. After starting to read regularly again, it came back.
Stories like this are scary. My employer based health insurance has an $18,000 deductible before it starts to cover 70% of approved, in-network bills. One visit to ER could easily cost me $20,000. A simple doctor visit can range from $150 to $1000. The effect is that any doctor visit is viewed as a last resort option.
Your employer is screwing the employees via a terrible grandfathered plan. Any new insurance plan after ACA would have a maximum deductible equal to out of pocket maximum, which for 2019 was $15.8k for non HSA and $13.5k with HSA.
But I’ve never heard of a deductible actually being set equal to out of pocket maximum or even anything close to it. Even the bronze family plans on healthcare.gov had deductibles of a few thousand.
While I don't use any pesticides, farms and cities use high amounts of pesticides. Farms apply pesticides by crop-dusting and with tractors. Cities drive trucks up and down every street fogging the entire city with mosquito pesticides.
If enough people complained to the cities about the harmful effects of spraying, they may stop. Convincing agriculture to use less pesticides would be much harder and likely involve powerful lobbies at the state and federal level.
In the past, large wildflowers and flowering bushes in my front yard would draw many butterflies and bees. The city started spaying all neighborhoods for mosquitoes every few weeks. You don't see butterflies or bees around any more. The bee hives in a nearby city were killed by mosquito spraying.
Burnout in IT can be like boiling a frog. One can get involved in larger and larger projects, then architecture, and then find themselves part of an on-call group that tries to keep production systems running. Pretty soon one is working excessive hours monitoring systems, driving projects, and also responding to production issues 24x7.
If it happens gradually enough, working twelve hours a day and being called repeatedly during evenings and weekends can feel normal. The high cost on one's health, social life, and family life can be extreme and quite dangerous.
Isn't this a recurring theme for the last few decades? A telco takes federal money with the promise of laying fiber, providing broadband, and creating jobs. Next, they don't do any of that and ask for more money a year later.
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