Here's the deal. Insurance is a simple concept. Take house fires. They are fairly rare, but they do happen. We could all just save up enough money to cover a house fire ourselves, or, since we know that house fires are rare, we can pool our money together as friends and neighbors and when one of us in that pool gets unlucky and has their house burn down, it can be covered by insurance. A lot of us pay a little money for peace of mind that if a rare catastrophic event does hit us, we'll be OK.
This same concept applies to some medical issues, but there are a lot of medical issues it does not apply to. Getting a routine infection and needing antibiotics? Everyone is going to need that. It makes no sense to pool our money and pay out for the rare person that needs money for that. How many other medical expenses are like that? Even things that are rare for a group of 20-year olds like heart attacks are actually a lot less rare (more common than house fires, probably) for an older age group. So while it might make sense for a group of 20-year olds to pool money together to pay for the rare heart attack amongst that group, it might not make any sense for an over-50 group of people to do that same. It definitely doesn't make sense for a 20-year old to join that group. Yet this is exactly what we do. We all pool our money together and use it to pay for every medical expense that comes up. Minor infection? Use insurance! Need a couple stitches? Use insurance. Routine screening? Wow, didn't see that coming, good thing I have insurance.
This is insane, and this is the root of all our problems.
This same concept applies to some medical issues, but there are a lot of medical issues it does not apply to. Getting a routine infection and needing antibiotics? Everyone is going to need that. It makes no sense to pool our money and pay out for the rare person that needs money for that. How many other medical expenses are like that? Even things that are rare for a group of 20-year olds like heart attacks are actually a lot less rare (more common than house fires, probably) for an older age group. So while it might make sense for a group of 20-year olds to pool money together to pay for the rare heart attack amongst that group, it might not make any sense for an over-50 group of people to do that same. It definitely doesn't make sense for a 20-year old to join that group. Yet this is exactly what we do. We all pool our money together and use it to pay for every medical expense that comes up. Minor infection? Use insurance! Need a couple stitches? Use insurance. Routine screening? Wow, didn't see that coming, good thing I have insurance.
This is insane, and this is the root of all our problems.