Friday, May 24, 2013

Quote of the Day - how health insurance should work

Nothing I could add could possibly improve this:
The banning of catastrophic-only plans infuriates me the most. Those are the only plans that are actually financially sensible for a healthy individual to purchase. Everything else on the market is a perverse by-product of the employer-based insurance system.

Worst case scenario with a catastrophic-only plan is you end up with $10,000 in debt. That’s a debt load many times smaller than what the Federal government thinks students should take out to get a college degree. We’ll let you borrow $100,000 to get a sociology degree but, we think that $10,000 is an unconscionable amount to pay for medical expenses? So unconscionable that we have to FORCE YOU to buy a plan with more extensive coverage?

Of course, we all know the real reason for this. it’s meant to force healthy young people to subsidize healthcare for older sicker people. Just force them to pay more for insurance than they ought to, and force them to buy more extensive coverage than is rational.
Word.

4 comments:

NotClauswitz said...

When I was young and healthy and riding/racing fast motorcycles with some slightly crazy people that's what I had because it was the only thing that made any sense.

drjim said...

I don't even want to think of what my recent medical emergency cost.
1. Ambulance ride
2. ER admission
3. MANY tests
4. Transfer to CCU
5. Procedure to install 3 stents
6. More tests
7. Numerous medications
8. 3 days in hospital

Any guesses?

100K?

200k?

Hopefully my wife's "Cadillac" health plan via the school district she works for will pick up almost all of this, but I shudder to think what the final "billable amount" will be.

Borepatch said...

Dr. Jim, one of the problems with health care today is that pricing is (intentionally) opaque. It may be that nobody really knows.

drjim said...

I suspect you're right.

I remember stories of a $20 aspirin tablet from when I was younger, and $20 was a *lot* of money!