thank you ... so my understanding is that , it is better as well as mandatory to have health insurance to avoid any tax penalty.. !!

@goofyui If you really believe you are healthy enough and unlikely to use your health insurance, you should look into 'catastrophic' plans which generally cover much less (but still cover catastrophes, ie serious injury in a car crash) but also cost much less.

"or even millions of dollars worth of debt" ...does insurance actually pay for that much? I vaguely seem to recall hearing that there are generally caps around a million dollars or something.

@Mehrdad this depends very much on the policy.

@arp: Hm, interesting... so your reply prompted me to do a search, and I found a link saying the opposite of what I thought: "The current law prohibits health plans from putting annual or lifetime dollar limits on most benefits you receive." So I guess for most benefits it doesn't depend on the policy? Depending on how they interpret "most" I guess... they say it includes "essential" health benefits.

@Mehrdad I seem to remember the ACA did away with lifetime limits. My cousin came down with pancreatic cancer and eventually succumbed to it before the ACA, but not before hitting a 750k lifetime limit on her insurance and leaving her husband with hundreds of thousands of debt.

@maple_shaft while it is possible to inherit assets, debts are different. Unless the husband cosigned for loans related to his late wife's treatment, he should not be paying those debts.

$2400 per year seems like a huge amount - the average worker pays £650 per year to the NHS (~$880). Is that really the best deal?

@Tim US Healthcare is expensive because the system is inefficient.

@Tim You Brits don't realize how lucky you have it. Everytime I hear you complain about the NHS I want to slap every one of you.

@GlenPierce Would you give a loan to a dying person who is too sick to work? The husband almost certainly would've had take out the loans himself.

@RossRidge That is correct. It wasnt for nothing either. Those treatments kept the cancer in remission for several years.

@Tim $200 a month for health insurance in the U.S. is actually less than it usually is. Typically $200 to $300 a month is about the cost of an extremely basic plan (aka: “catastrophic”) in the U.S. For the level of casual care most people know about in the rest of the world, costs would be around $500 to $600 per month. That is why most people want an improved healthcare system. And that is why many people suffer at horrible jobs in the U.S.; if you are getting benefits like healthcare you can save $$$. It’s all screwy.

@Tim, you are right .. my actual health insurance cost is around $300 per month, which i use it yearly once check up / flu shot. I dont think, there is any where close by $200 offered through my employer

@Mehrdad dental health plans tend to have yearly limits, but regular health insurance does not.

@Tim where can I send the £650? Do they take USD? #takemymoney

@Mehrdad the ACA did away with lifetime limits, but the current party in power has made repealing the ACA one of their top priorities, and while they are unlikely to completely succeed, it seems unwise to count on any given provision remaining in force forever. (In particular, the repeal of the individual mandate makes it likely that insurers will withdraw from no-longer-profitable markets...)

@maple_shaft I think it's more you Americans who don't realize how bad you have it ;) British health insurance is actually a bit on the expensive site when compared to most developed countries

@JakeGould Actually, Adam Ruins Everything documents a different reason why costs are so high (hint: humans are greedy).