Originally Posted by
Radgirl
He may well have insurance for loss of earnings but the US is unique in the developed world in not having a national and universal health system that is free at point of use. Healthcare is the commonest cause of bankruptcy. No matter how good your US health insurance, there will be limits, co pays and deductibles. There will be network restrictions meaning if the only surgeon or anesthesiologist available is from the 'wrong' network you have to pay. As such it is almost inconceivable he will not face significant uninsured bills. With a social security system little better his family may also struggle with associated costs. I worked in the system and despair at its failures, but I am not making a political point, just pointing out the practicalities and the need for fundraising
Because he works for a reputable, large corporation (Air Methods, I believe, is that correct?), it is unlikely that this will result in any sort of financial train wreck for him and his family. Air Methods provides a very typical-appearing US corporate benefits package including corporate subsidized group medical, corporate subsidized short term disability, and optional employee-paid long term disability. This is all on their website.
Again, not familiar with Air Methods benefits package precisely (but I bet someone on here is), but a typical corporate benefits scenario would see sick leave will pay full salary for 10-14 days, most people will then exhaust their accrued vacation hours again at full salary, typically with 2-4 weeks available, then three months of short term disability at 3/4 rate of pay, and after that 6 months of long term disability at half pay. Certainly we all hope that his injuries are not so severe that he has to reach into the short or long term disability periods.
His cost of insurance is a sunk cost, meaning he's factored it into his budget, and he probably pays somewhere around $500 or $600 a month, with the rest of the costs paid for by his corporate benefits package.
His total out-of-pocket medical insurance cost, which does not include his monthly contribution, will be capped annually, and is unlikely to exceed $10K. It's unlikely he is out of network, but even those costs are capped, typically at 1.5x the in-network cost.
If we assume a month's recuperation (and let's all hope it's much shorter than that), he'll lose vacation time but not salary, and probably max. his out-of-pocket insurance. Let's further assume that his family will have expenses to visit him, etc. So a fundraiser of $15 to 20K would be very helpful, but even without it it should not break the man or his family.
"Obamacare" marketplace insurance for those who are not covered by corporate subsidized, group insurance is expensive, even with government subsidies. That's the situation I'm in. I have the best plan available in my state. It's like paying a mortgage: $2000/mo for me and my wife. $13K max. out-of-pocket annually after that payment. If you want catastrophic-type insurance, i.e. are young, healthy and not worried about anything, you can knock this down to $200 to $600/mo, give or take depending on your income, but max. out-of-pocket is like $24K. For folks living hand-to-mouth a catastrophic event can be financial disaster. Thankfully that should not be the case for the pilot involved in this incident. But, even if you can't pay, if you show up at a US emergency department (aka A&E, casualty, etc.), if it's a public hospital they MUST treat you, they cannot turn you away. It's the follow up care where things get dicey.