Free market doesn't work for health insurance...

[dkf]

http://baselinescenario.com/

Insurance and Health Insurance

with 58 comments

"I’ve been meaning to write a post on health insurance ever since hearing Karen Tumulty on Fresh Air. (She was discussing her Time article on underinsurance.) I happen to think that a free market for insurance works pretty well in most circumstances (and I did co-found an insurance software company); for example, if you can afford the house, you can generally afford the insurance for the house.

But it doesn’t work very well for health care, because many people are simply uninsurable under free market principles (expected health care costs exceed their income, let alone their ability to pay), and hence would be left to die.

We think we have a private, for-profit insurance system today, but we can only avoid its disturbing implications by hedging it in with public backstops and regulations."

[lostnotforgotten]

1. Universal Coverage - Single Payer Is The Only Equitable Solution

eom

[dkf]

4. I'm not sure "equitable" is the word we are looking for.

Is it equitable that people who take care of their health have to pay for those who don't?

I'd call it humane if anything.

[lostnotforgotten]

5. What One Does To the Least Of Me One Does To All - Paraphrasing Jesus

Since we are a Cristian nation, according to the the Right Wing, this seems apropos.

[dkf]

6. Goodness, no theocracy talk please.

Thank you.

[lostnotforgotten]

7. People Want Moral Justifications Not Free Market Psycho Babble

eom

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. I think it is the word -

Not all who are healthy live healthy lifestyles - and not all who are unhealthy are so because of their lifestyles.

In fact, lifestyle has only a marginal effect on individuals' health, or the health of the nation as a whole. Take ten people and expose them to the same environmental influences and you will get ten different reactions. The only true baseline is that we are all human, so the system that treats us each individually as it treats all other - equitably, that is - is the only rational system.

[pnutbutr]

2. free market doesn't work for anything

which is why the government has to implement regulations on all forms of business.

[Turbineguy]

3. What do you mean?

You need health care insurance and they're free to screw you. In a repub paradise, that's a free market.

But yes, the free market for health care insurance would only work if we were free to choose our illnesses as well.

[Bigmack]

8. "Free" Market?....

Where one side holds all the cards? .... and can make a bigger prophet by screwing somebody? That's not free market, it's Predatory Capitalism.

Why have health insurance companies at all? Medicare works pretty well, and if the govt would start putting doctors and hospital administrators who cheat in jail, the same could work for everybody.

Why do banks and mortgage companies loan money for mortgages? FHA and VA insure home loans. Why not skip the middle man (who takes a hefty cut), and go right to government mortgages?

Free Market doesn't exist.