@Rasta It was invented as a risk management idea, not all that different from life insurance. "We pay you when something bad happens, to cover the costs of that"
But then the industry injected themselves as the middlemen between patients and doctors, and created the biggest pile of perverse incentives this side of wall street.
The idea that private interests should act as risk management middlemen to ordinary people is perverse: that role belongs to society broadly, more narrowly as embodied in government. There’s never much ado made about using government as the final risk management backstop for corporations, but … gasp, clutch pearls … if one suggests the same for actual people.
@DavidM_yeg @ikanreed @Rasta Well, reasonable people can disagree on that question for insurance, generally speaking; e.g. if I have to buy my own insurance then maybe I will avoid taking certain risks so I can save on insurance. Like, if I drive a car I should probably be the one who pays the premiums, I shouldn't force others to via taxes like you seem to be suggesting. That seems like a useful incentive structure.
And yeah, there's a lot wrong with private health insurance.
But I think OP is clearly overstating the point here; the reason for private health insurance to exist is to pool risk. Even if you believe this is not a good way to do that, it does serve that function.
