 Hey, welcome back to my YouTube channel guys today. We're going to talk about health care part two So if you did not see my first video a couple weeks ago I will link it above and I got a great response and a lot of interest And so I thought I'd make a part two because there's quite a few things I didn't get a chance to talk about in the first video So I think you're gonna really enjoy this and I'm gonna talk about the difference between health care in the US Compared to New Zealand and at the end so make sure you stay tuned I am going to tell a personal story about what it was like having kids in the US and how much it actually costs So make sure you stay tuned in the end to see that and subscribe below. Here we go Okay, so let's just summarize New Zealand health care and what it's like for somebody living there living here So first of all just basic public health care is free You can also buy private insurance which then enables you to just go to the doctor Whenever you want or go to a specialist or maybe get that surgery done quicker. So that's a nice option And it's not outrageous. We pay You know $50 for a family of six for that insurance here Because the idea of health care in New Zealand is very different They consider it a basic human right that people have health care and can be treated if they're not feeling well They also have very low-cost prescriptions. Does it matter where you go? It can either be free five dollars ten dollars very low-cost They also don't require that you have pre-existing conditions So I mean they can't deny you insurance if you have pre-existing conditions Which is not true in the US and I'll overview that in a minute and they also have ACC Which is like they cover you if you have an accident whether is even your fault It doesn't have to be an accident at work You give me an accident anytime and they will cover your Salary up to 80% for as long as it takes for you to recover. So it's pretty great You don't feel bad if you have an accident when you're in New Zealand and if you get sick You know, you don't really hesitate everything is much easier and Free here in New Zealand. Okay, so now let's talk about health care in the US Now if you haven't seen my other video, I'd probably watch that first But today I'm going to talk about a couple of topics that were really important that I didn't get a chance to cover in the last one What's not included in this video is I'm not going to talk about medicare and Medicaid medicare is the program in the US for People that are over 65 and Medicaid is for kind of the poorest of the nation And those are different programs and they have different rules around them Now there's lots of pros and cons to both of those but we will not be talking about that So in this video, I'm just going to talk about kind of the majority of your life and living with insurance in the US Okay So the first thing I'd like to talk about is the cost of insurance And I think that this is one of the biggest problems in the US is that there's no you have no idea how much anything costs Because the way that it works is this insurance based and so you can't go to a doctor and say how much will it be for this MRI or for This x-ray because they're gonna bill the insurance hold that they cover it and then pass whatever is left on Over and so it's just it's always changing and then nobody really knows the cost of anything which is really ridiculous and like really really frustrating and so The way that it works for most people if you have a job You will get health insurance through your company Hopefully and the amount now I think the average is like 10 15,000 per employee And then the company will pay a portion of that and that portion varies depending on your company So like a company's benefits will be Different and their health insurance benefits will be good or bad based on how much they pay and then you have to choose your deductible It can be like a 500 a thousand a lot of people do a 2500 deductible And what that means is they will cover none of your costs until That deductible is paid and then after that it's generally 80 20 or 70 30 Where they'll pay 80 percent and you pay 20 and that's generally how it is so you're paying for insurance every month Plus you have to pay your deductible before it even goes into effect and then you have to pay still 20% on top of that and then there's copays like when you go to the doctor and that sort of thing now They also offer a program called the health savings account through a lot of companies where you can Save money tax-free to pay down those deductibles But I just feel like they just make everything difficult like you have to go through all of these hoops Just to go to the doctor, right? And one of the biggest problems with having insurance associated with your job is that so many people stay with jobs that they Absolutely hate for years and years and years of their life Because of the insurance because they need the insurance because maybe the insurance is really good Because if you are self-employed or you buy your own insurance for us I think we only were a family of four at the time and I had we were Self-employed and we paid a thousand dollars a month just to have insurance and that insurance like covered nothing Like it was really bad I'm gonna tell a story about that in a minute and so it's very stressful for Americans to not have insurance so they work at jobs that they don't even like and What's also difficult is that no matter how good your job is and how good the insurance is For that associated with that job. They will still not pay for pre-existing conditions So if you have a disease or an ailment that you've maybe even had your whole life and that's a doctor at some point said Oh, you have this then now it's a pre-existing condition and no insurance company will cover that So you'll have to pay for all the prescriptions and everything that that does not cover. It's just insane So it begs the question What happens if you don't have insurance now, there's a couple things to think about It's not that big of a deal if you're just going to get a checkup or get something checked from a doctor And you say I don't have any insurance You need to pay direct and most doctors are very reasonable and I noticed this when I went back to the states even with insurance I still asked what that would be because I would almost prefer to pay a price And I actually know the one that might be sent through the mail and I'm shocked at the price So you can just you just would have to pay out-of-pocket if you don't have insurance Which is generally fine for like basic things the problem that this hit that you run into is If you don't have insurance and you have an emergency or you have a huge accident or you know something huge You get cancer you have something you are not covered and you are basically bankrupt There's no option for you You're basically bankrupt if you have an emergency and you come off the street the way the way that it works in hospitals If you enter into the er like with an emergency they have to take you Even if you don't have insurance so in an emergency situation, they have to take you but you still have to pay But otherwise doctors can turn you away if you don't have insurance So it can be very very stressful for people that don't have insurance So the obama administration came up with the affordable care act a couple years ago That I believe has been overturned by Trump I haven't been in the us in a couple years. So correct me if I'm wrong but The affordable care act was just an act put in effect where it would offer Insurance for so many people because there's a significant portion of the us that wasn't insured at the time because of all of these different reasons and so While a lot of people think oh well, that's great and that's important one of the biggest downfalls is that is that it was It was a forced program. So like if you were a healthy 20 year old and you just decided you didn't want insurance Uh, you had to acknowledge that you didn't you don't have the affordable care act insurance And you don't have any other insurance and you have to pay tax on it So you like got charged a fee for not having it which just kind of Put a lot of americans off to be honest and so I'm not saying that it was a bad program overall I mean anything to kind of fix the situation and I think that that's the way that they could cut some of the costs Uh, but yeah, there's that also is why things kind of Put a bad taste in people's mouths another thing to think about in terms of emergency is ambulance like how much does an ambulance cost in the us? So if you have insurance an ambulance will cost on average $450 now I remember with insurance we had I had called once and it was $250 So that's an average But if you don't have insurance and you call an ambulance, it's $1,200 Plus you have to pay mileage apparently I was just reading up on that and I was like, oh my goodness and then if you have a pre-existing condition like I said You're kind of out of luck. So the health care system in the us is Shockingly horrible compared to what I'm experiencing here So a lot of americans don't like the idea of like they think socialized health care is bad and I won't have any control over it and And it's gonna the care is gonna be Not as good, right? And that's generally the the feeling of americans and why they don't want to change it Uh, and so but there's plenty of countries that have kind of both where they have just a basic health care for free but then also offer An insurance where you can go to specialists and you know, you can pick your level of service And what you have like in australia has a good one and in new zealand and other places a lot of places have really good ones So all our people have figured this out And so like the us Really needs to figure this out. Okay Because it's really it's it's They it's it's not an either or it can be an and so yes, if you have like a free socialized If that's what you want to call it more It's better termed universal health care than Um, everybody gets it. Yeah, okay So like the service isn't tax good when you have a government run system It can be very inefficient Whereas you can go to the us and you'll have state-of-the-art facilities and you'll have amazing cancer Places that are just amazing like the hospital that I went into for my final pregnancy was Unbelievable like literally my husband had to pull me out Like most people are ready to leave the hospital Not me my room had jetted Spa tub this amazing shower that had like 16 different things squirting out at one time They had amazing nursing staff Somebody ran every every day around the same time would bring hot warm cookies to you And then another lady that would come in and rub your feet. So yes, we figured out how to provide Really great service, but only if you can afford it And and it's not great, you know, so like I don't know I go that you go from one extreme to the other so is it better that People that can afford it or have good insurance can actually have really good health care And then nobody else gets it And then, you know, and so like where's the balance and I a lot of countries have figured out this balance where you can You know have a health insurance or something for our healthcare system where everybody can go to it But then have an option for if you wanted that fancy hospital for Or for you know having a baby or you had cancer And you wanted to go to the special place and then you can but it's just it's so expensive And it's all privatized and it's very different And so that's just a little information for you that I thought you would enjoy In regards to health care system in the u.s. And really understanding what it's like for families To live in that so I wanted to share a quick story about Uh, the birth of my children I had two of my children because I also did a video on You know what it's like for maternity leave and for women in the u.s. So I'll link that above as well But let's talk a little bit about what the cost was for me So the cost was covered by insurance and two other ones. We were self-employed. We paid for insurance A thousand dollars a month and we thought you know, we would be covered because I'm paying so, you know That it would be the same as being with a company insurance, but no It wasn't because the other ones were, you know, they weren't cheap five ten thousand dollars in it to have children To go through pregnancy to have all of the checkups So that wasn't as unreasonable So I'm paying twelve thousand dollars a year to have insurance of which when I have the baby They tell me that it's only gonna cover up to five thousand Which didn't even get me through the cost of pre nato care with my doctor before I had the baby So that was stressful. And so then you have to start looking at costs Like which hospital is going to be the cheapest for me to go to? I even brought my own drugs because they were charging me twenty five dollars for a Tylenol or be the same as a panadol in New Zealand It was very very stressful So it would have been my second child. Was it my second? Yeah, one of my children I had When we were self-employed and it was Thirty thousand dollars to have a child with insurance because I'm self-employed And when I got these bills, I was so shocked and so Frustrated when you're trying to be a legitimate citizen when you're trying to have insurance You're trying to follow the rules and do everything I am still charged like who can afford that You know, and then I go can I get a rundown on all the charges? And that's when I saw 25 dollars for one Tylenol and just outrageous prices for things I wouldn't have even had that. I didn't even that's the other problem Is they're giving you all these things That maybe you don't care if you have it and then charging you later an astronomical amount of money And it literally puts you in debt and puts a lot of people in a very difficult situation And so what I did because I'm not like your normal person as you can tell is I called The head of the hospital that I was at and it was not an expensive hospital It was just like the basic hospital in the city And I called up the guy and I said I want to talk about this insurance bill And I want to talk about the fact that I have a company of which I Have employees how I'm contributing to society and helping the economy And I have my own insurance that's outrageous and doesn't pay anything And now I'm getting a bill for $30,000 and this is reasonable And how is this reasonable like I'm trying to do everything that I can You know and if someone Homeless off the street comes in and has a baby and you deliver it because it's emergency for them And you you know you want to charge them but they have no money and they have no house or anything like that Or any credit that matters. So your credit score in the u.s. Is very important So if like I don't pay a bill if I don't pay a medical bill it affects my credit And then I can't buy a house can't buy a car can't buy anything And so, you know, some people don't care about that. So they'll just you know, do what they need and whatever and they're not good citizens Let's just say okay And so I'm like these people can do this but I'm trying to be like a real citizen. He's like, yeah, I totally agree He's like if you Pay half of this within 90 days. I'll I'll cut it in half So he basically like didn't even have to look at the bill Knew how much money they were probably making on this and just said pay half by this date and I won't charge you anymore So I worked it out that I did because I was about to save a little bit of money Which was still hard to come up with half of that amount of money. It's hard to just suddenly Oh, sure. I have 15 grand to pay for this and we're talking about a child You know, like you're having a child like this should be a wonderful special time But you're sitting here worried about all of these costs. Anyway So that was the stressful part and ever since then it was very stressful for me to have kids because I was nervous because I And the reason why my bill they're saying well, the average cost of pregnancy is 5,000 I'm like, how is it 5,000 when it doesn't even cover all of the prenatal care and then Basically it covers also if you have like a baby In like 10 seconds naturally, I didn't have any babies naturally I had all C sections because of of you know, just the way that I am and so You know, and so like I have to pay $30,000 because that's the way that I am and so this is how it is So I hope that I gave you some insight on what it's like um Living in the us and healthcare system and getting a little bit more insight on that I don't want to take up too much of your time today I would love to hear your stories Share with me what it's been like for you if you live in the us and I have had these kind of experiences And um, or if you've lived in new zealand or any other country You've had good experiences with healthcare healthcare or having kids and babies. I'd love to hear it. See you next week