Hear me out on this, please.
Let’s say that I spend $5k on health insurance in a year, but don’t go to the doctor or have any medical issues in that year. Where does my money go? It disappears. I basically just gave away my money, and received nothing in return. However, if I took that $5k and simply put it into a personal savings account instead of giving it away to a health insurance provider - that money stays right there if and whenever I decide to use it. It even collects interest.
I realize that with a health insurance provider, you’re (supposedly) getting discounted rates on medical services - but if your money is just disappearing into thin air if you don’t happen to need those medical services in a given year, are you really saving money? It just seems like a really big scam to me - what am I missing?
Sounds very expensive there… Pretty sure funerals relatives of mine have had were priced in 2-3 digits.
That is an extremely foreign concept to my indoctrinated american brain… My grandmother pre-paid for her entire funeral, casket and burial plot included, back in the early 1980s and didn’t pass until 2005. It cost her like $3000 in 1980s money and we were told at the time the same arrangements would have cost about $25000 in 2005. Another family member died that same year and was cremated and that cost about $4000 just for the basic plain box mentioned above. I’m sure today it is at least double that… (guessing based on how much more EVERYTHING else costs vs 20 years ago).
Jeez just haul me out to the woods and plant a tree overtop of me, I need nothing but to return my borrowed stardust back to nature
You can spend a few thousand here, but at that point you are getting a fairly large service and feeding everyone too. Burial is also another way to add a lot to the cost.