Dialysis Dialectic 0
A caller to the Diane Rehm show looks at the arguments against health care reform and nails their internal contradiction:
- Argument One: No government program can be good.
Argument Two: Private insurers can’t compete against the government.
And follows it to the logical conclusion:
- If no government program is good and
if the private insurers can’t compete against a government program,
then the private insurance system must therefore be really, really bad.
The Booman adds a thought (emphasis added):
What should be obvious here is that the classic insurance model doesn’t work for things that are inevitable. The reason home insurance is affordable is because most homes don’t burn down. The insurance company takes in many small premiums and pays out only a few large claims. But we all die. Almost all of us get sick before we die. . . . The way private health insurance companies make money is twofold. First, the government covers the elderly, many of the children, and high-risk individuals like our armed forces and veterans. The government also covers many people with disabilities that require ongoing care. So, the private companies are left with a pool of the healthiest individuals, who make relatively few claims. Second, they charge you money throughout your whole working life so that the expense of covering your decline and death is spread out and may be less than what you pay in (and if you live past 64, they don’t have to pay out at all).
