By Larry Marsh, Kansas City Star Midwest Voices columnist 2009
Not everyone without health insurance is poor. Some are young libertarians who, like a number of younger folks, think they're invincible (probably the same ones texting while driving).
Libertarians don't want government or other authoritarian entities controlling their lives. In a more general sense, a libertarian might define "government" as a collective entity that collects taxes (or insurance premiums) and set rules and regulations about what they can and cannot do. In this sense your health insurance card is like a government id card. It doesn't really matter to some libertarians whether the "government" is called Humana, Medicare or Blue Cross Blue Shield, it's just one more entity trying to control their lives.
To most people going without health insurance is a game of Russian roulette. To a young libertarian buying health insurance is like buying a lottery ticket. Statistically, buying a lottery ticket on average produces a negative return. No government or private entity would run a lottery if it didn't make money from the average player. The insurance industry operates the same way.
Let's do the math. If you were to survive 30 years without health insurance, what difference would it make? Let's say your health insurance premiums were a flat $500 a month for 30 years. Instead, if you were to save that and invest it compounded monthly at an annual interest rate of 3 percent, 5 percent or 8 percent, how much would you end up with? The answer is: $292,097, $417,863 or $750,148 respectively. (See formula below.)
Alternatively, you might get into a terrible car accident or inherit a debilitating disease, lose your job and your home and end up on the street.
My grandfather said "insure against those things that would dramatically upset your life, but not against things you could cover out of your bank account." I assumed this meant I should get health insurance with an appropriate deductible as well as anything that would otherwise require me to hire a gang of lawyers like liability insurance.
What should the average person do? A statistician has been defined as a person who can put their left hand in freezing water and their right hand in boiling water and say: "on average I feel just fine." If you can "feel just fine" under such circumstances then maybe you don't need health insurance, but for the rest of us health insurance is a necessary expense to avoid a potential disaster.
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Also see:
We need to move beyond a one-size-fits-all health care system
Will public option life insurance doom us to a life of socialism?
The incentive structure of our health care system is all wrong
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Make HEALTH Care Affordable For EVERY American
Good article, good information.
Every one should be able to have and afford health insurance.
Make HEALTH Care Affordable For EVERY American.
Try it, you won't like it.
I wish that "time travel" actually existed. Those libertarians, who covet a "go-it-alone" form of society would have an opportunity to revisit the America they so desire, as it was in the 1920s. Health insurance of any kind, public or private, did not exist back then. Those who needed medical attention, had to have money available or do without help. It would be a real eye-opener for those who have never experienced life as it used to be. I bet they would be crying for their mommy after a week living in the Great Depression.
And does anyone honestly believe $750,000
is enough to cover a catastrophic illness or injury?
Here's a 6 year old who needs $1 million a year for health care expenses:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNHNCScYpX8
That's ridiculous
Okay, I love kids as much as anyone else, but we have to draw the line somewhere. $1 million a year for health care is just absolutely ridiculous! And I thought medical insurance in Florida was out of control.
Re
Absolutely agree!
1 000 000 $ - is really ridiculous.
Paying for "socialised" healthcare
Oh Larry, your figures are, as ever, incontrovertable, but ignore the fundamental principle of all insurance: "The Loss should fall Lightly upon the Many rather than Heavily upon the Few.". Your pot may have become very large with age, but you still face the situation where, once it is spent, you are obliged to die.
Here in the UK we have a very-much maligned socialised medicine system which is genuinely free at the point of use, and very good it is too.
It has drawbacks. One, it is a shibboleth of the Left and any one who criticises it or suggests changing it is attacked vigorously and personally; it is thus immune from criticism, and effectively from change. As a result the administrative arm has been expanded hand-over-fist to provide jobs for the political left and its client state - a severe case of Tammany-Hall style corruption.
Two, there is nothing with which it competes directly, so comparisons are difficult. We are stuck with the world's third largest organisation behind the Chinese Red Army and the Indian State Railways. Since it is larger than any of the other schemes one might ask why it isn't the best, and I have already answered that in the last paragraph.
You might be able to make it work if you split it into state-wide chunks, where the citizens can judge its performance and make improvements without wrecking the whole thing.
Three, it is impossible to cut the budget of the service because of the orchestrated tactics of the special interest groups and their scare tactics.
I understand that any such plan in the states will face the opposition of the huge premium-gathering and administration interests. Believe me, they can be ignored.
The Doctors may also oppose the introduction of such a system, as they did in the UK. Historically they have always opposed every reform in the UK service, but have invariably ended up championing the system.
You might make it work; the precedents are clear before you, but I suggest keeping it in manageable chunks, and asking yourselves very carefully whether you can really afford it, and whether you can really afford it NOW.
money solves everything
Unless your investments are generating more money each year than your expenses. In that case you are "obligated" to live forever.