When it comes to your wallet - it doesn't matter if you are a progressive or conservative. You are going to protect your financial interests.
It's a principal as old as Life itself.
It's a principal as old as Life itself.
Increasing taxes raises the cost to the individual, but it also raises costs for all their neighbors, and results in community improvement (ideally).
Is investing an attack on your financial interests?
Insurance is worthwhile whether you get $0.80 or $1.25 back on the dollar. It's not necessary for people to have a positive expected value from it.
I propose a 2 part system. One system is government funded and pays for ambulances, ER visits, annual checkups/physicals, and maybe a few other basic services like dental cleaning. When you dial 911, the police and fire department both come for free, so why does the ambulance bill you a grand? Any sort of life or death situation would be covered by this. Abuse of the system can be monitored and the government has plenty of recourse.
The 2nd part of the system would cover short and long-term illnesses and conditions as well as prescriptions. Things like orthodontics could also be a part of it. Basically, it pays for any doctor that doesn't work in an ER. This way people who don't use these services a lot aren't burdened by those that do while at the same time eliminating the fear (and litigation) that comes with being bankrupted by a catastrophic accident
Pre-existing conditions are not defined by the average paid out in claims to a person.
It's normal to have a deductible that's over $5K and is not met in a typical year, and one or more pre-existing conditions. So it bewilders me how people keep debating as though the contrary were typical.
The question is not whether a person should have their predictable costs paid for through "insurance", but whether a person should be able to get insurance for catastrophic costs, if they are considered to have a non-quantifiable risk.
There is a fundamental inefficiency in a market that discriminates against sick people, not just a lack of "social justice" or whatever. If insurance companies are allowed to discriminate against pre-existing conditions, then they have to charge not just enough to cover the true risk of the high risk customers, but enough to cover the risk of being wrong about the risk - insurance against "unknown unknowns", adverse selection.
"Fairness" often costs more money.
Yes, it would! People always vote to raise taxes on the minority (the 'rich') to give money to the majority (the 'poor'). This is rule by tyranny, a common issue with democratic governments. It is one of the main reasons democracy is not the ultimate value of the United States governmental system.