Mom-of-two explains how her family pays $2,614 per month for a fairly good healthcare package

A California mom shared on TikTok how much her family pays for a decent health insurance package every month. According to her YouTube bio, Marina Mogilko—who goes by @linguamarina on social media platforms—is an entrepreneur and YouTuber originally from Saint Petersburg, Russia. She now lives in California with her partner and two kids and runs a successful company, LinguaTrip, with customers in Silicon Valley. Mogilko often shares what it's like to live in the United States with her 2.4 million followers on TikTok, but her video about how much a fairly good—but not amazing—healthcare package costs in California grabbed more attention than usual with more than 997,000 views.

"Guess how much we pay for health insurance in California as a family of four," Mogilko challenges her viewers at the beginning of the video. "Let me show you what's included first. As a small business owner, I selected Blue Shield of California because they have the biggest network and almost every good hospital is included and even some acupuncture and chiropractic clinics. We have something that is called a full PPO which means I don't need an approval to see a specialist and I pay around $10 out of pocket per visit."

Mogilko revealed in a previous video that she had to pay over $2200 from her own pocket for delivering her second child at the hospital despite it being a natural birth and the family only staying at the hospital for a night. "By the way, dental coverage is not included," the content creator continued in her video about health insurance. "We pay $787 for an adult and $520 for a baby. So in total, for a family of four, we pay $2614 a month." Mogilko concludes the video by asking her followers how much they pay for health insurance in their country. 

As it turns out, people in many countries pay little to nothing for healthcare. "I pay nothing in Canada," commented one TikTok user. "In Norway health care is free," revealed another. "None... well, I pay my regular taxes from my income (around 50%) and nothing more... free health, education, etc. in Denmark," shared Luis Pedro Pereira. "In Japan, we pay around $10-20 to visit a doctor or dentist. National health insurance covers the rest," commented Marianne Kimura. "Most I ever paid was $30 for some pills because I forgot my health card at home. But I got that back," revealed another commenter from Canada.

In a more recent video shared this month, Mogilko shared how even with fairly good health insurance, she ran into some trouble when needing to buy some medication. "So I've been getting regular migraines and my doctor recommended that I get some new pills," she explains. "She ordered them for me, and in a couple of days, I got an email from Walgreens that they're ready for pickup, but they had an issue with my insurance. So I owe $13,296 for my pills for migraine." Fortunately, the issue was cleared up after Mogilko contacted her doctor. "Always call your doctor and billing department if you get a huge bill. Chances are they made a mistake," she says in the video. "But do you also think that U.S. healthcare needs to be a bit more transparent?"