Originally Posted by
dulciusexasperis
You say, "It is not for routine medical care - that is what my normal health insurance is there for." What normal health insurance? What coverage does it give you outside of your home country?
Treatment outside of the USA is considered "out of network" - so one has to cover 50% up to the maximum out of pocket costs (after deductuble and covering usual cost for the care etc' but that is just noise for this converation). Those vary by plan and get to several thousands dollars which would be covered by the 10,000 Euro stop gap. For most plans the maximum is around $7K for individuals (mine is less, but that is irrelavent for the discussion).
Also, I'm not sure where you get your information but outside of the USA - a cast for a broken arm will not cost $12.5K. (And yes I've seen the self-serving claims on the insurance companies pages about the 11,000 pound broken arm - but I did not see any substitution to that anywhere, and even if true it is the not the "norm" but the list of all the complications they have not mentioned).
All in all, when traveling outside of one own country one need to make choices of cost and benefit. Yes it is possible to get an insurance that will cover everything and anything but the cost would be unsustainable.
My goal in providing that information is to point out a cost sensitive option - not to start a debate on the merits of each and every health insurance policy that one can buy.