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Saturday, February 6, 2010

Here's to Your Health VII

In all the back and forth over healthcare reform, particularly in the portions of the debate that concern the insurance industry--images of Republican lawmakers getting the vapors at the thought of helpless insurers being steamrolled by government competition spring to mind--one fact is often overlooked. Namely, insurance is the only industry whose successful business models depends on NOT serving its customers.



Think about it: Does McDonalds' discourage people from eating french fries? Would Nike make money by encouraging people to go barefoot? No. But a surefire way for insurers to increase profits is to deny the coverage that people pay for. Or to refuse to accept potentially costly clients in the first place.



In certain instances, this makes sense. An auto insurer is within its rights to refuse coverage to someone with a history of causing accidents. But driving is something that people can choose to do or not to do, and accidents can be avoided if drivers are careful. Someone who has congenital heart disease is hardly responsible for his own plight, but that doesn't matter when he tries to find insurance.



We just looked at that last sentence and realized that it gets to the heart of the problem. People with congenital heart disease--or any illness--don't want health insurance. In fact, NOBODY wants or, frankly, needs health insurance. What people want is healthCARE. People want to be able to see a doctor when they get sick, and they don't want to go bankrupt in the process. Neither of these seems particularly unreasonable.



At some point, it became the province of insurance companies to act as middlemen to see that these desires were met. Unfortunately, too many people in authority now seem to think that the needs of the middlemen are equal--or superior--to those of the people actually involved in the decisions, i.e., doctors and patients.



The only way we will ever have a rational healthcare system is to stop worrying--completely stop worrying--about the insurance industry. We are not naive, and we recognize that the industry is a stakeholder because of the money they throw into the political process. But we need to keep proclaiming loud and clear: The insurance industry is not an essential component of healthcare reform. No insurance company ever performed an appendectomy or cured a disease or delivered a baby. Any direct role an insurance company ever played in anyone's healthcare has probably been a negative one: A decision to deny coverage or a mandate to pursue a cheaper course of treatment regardless of relative efficacy.



Say it loud, say it clear, and say it often: Health insurers do not care about your health; NO ONE should care about theirs.

3 comments:

  1. I've been dealing with our health insurance over my many hospital, doctor and drug bills and it is a nightmare. It exhausts me.
    I don't even care anymore.
    I don't care about any of it because it's never going to happen and if it does, we won't even recognize it as a bill dealing with healthcare reform.And that's the way it is. =-(
    *But a damn good blog, Sol!

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  2. Get the insurance industry out of healthcare!!! The money that goes to pay their profits and to pay for their administrative costs and salaries and buildings is better spent elsewhere in the healthcare system.

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  3. What is interesting to me is the notion that while people do indeed want healthcare, that they should also be entitled to it. This goes to the very question of the role of government in our lives. Like it or not healthcare costs money. We can either socialize this in order to defray costs or we can privatize it as we have done. We as indiviuals are far from capable of creating our own IRA-like bank account for the future of our potential illnesses. Plus would we have set aside enough? The question of healthcare entitlement is one that only makes sense in an enlightened society, one that would more closely resemble socialism. We have always found ourselves somewhere in between. Saying we want healthcare is reasonable. Saying we are entitled to it is totally dependant the type of society and government we set up for ourselves. We are no more entiled to healthcare than we are to food and shelter. A government that helps supply all these things and more is just enlightened. Paying for it all is another thing.

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