RSSMyths, Misconceptions And Irrational Beliefs About Health Insurance
J.J. Jackson | October 19, 2009
Lots of people believe a lot of silly things about health insurance (and business in general). These beliefs are usually designed to be self-serving – i.e. concocted to make the the life of the one doing the concocting easier. Here is a list of the most common:
1) health insurance companies are evil because they make profits
If a health insurance company is evil because it makes a profit, does that make you evil every pay day and you “profit” from your own hard work as well? Profits are how companies stay in business just like how you decide to keep getting up day after day to go to work. No profit means little incentive to bring a product or service to market for the business or, in the case of the individual, no incentive to get up every day. Would you go to work if you were not paid? Don’t lie!
2) health insurance is a right
Health insurance is provided for your exclusive benefit. To make this a right would require the taking of someone else’s wealth, time and effort to provide it. Do you have the right to tell someone else that they must work to provide you with something like plantation owners did with slaves? I know seniors (Social Security) and the poor (Welfare) already do this but does it still make it right? Is it right to murder just because someone else did?
Some people will say that their tax dollars are used to pay for roads that they do not use, national defense, and other such things that do not benefit them however. Maybe they come up with some excuse in their mind how they do not benefit directly from products brought to market on trucks carrying goods on roads or even fighting the enemies of liberty, but the truth is that they do. These things benefit the whole of society. They do not benefit the individual exclusively.
3) charging people more because of pre-existing conditions is evil and wrong
What is the major obvious problem that arises if people are not punished through market forces for not buying insurance before they become sick? Come on, you can figure this one out …
Joe is a healthy man. So healthy in fact that he decides that he does not need to buy health insurance. For years Joe gets by with only minor colds and other common ailments rarely seeing the doctor except for his annual checkup which he pays for in cash. However years later Joe gets diagnosed with a bad case of the Heebie-Jeebies. Heebie-Jeebies is a terrible but curable disease however its treatment costs lots of money. Let’s say its treatment costs $1,000,000 over 4 months to cure this disease.
Joe doesn’t have the money saved to handle this sad situation and has been gleefully spending money he could have been using to buy health insurance for years on other things he decided were more important. In a world where insurance companies are barred from treating people with pre-existing conditions differently Joe would be able to run out and buy insurance the instance he was diagnosed for the same cost as a healthy individual, pay that cost for four months, get his treatment, get cured and then drop the coverage immediately after he was cured. Unless the “normal” premium for healthy individuals is $250,000 per month the insurance company would loose its shirt and why would anyone carry insurance if this were the way things worked? Everyone would do this and no insurance company would be left standing! Not even the “government” option.
Why pay $200 a month when not sick if you only have to pay $200 a month once you get sick, get thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars worth or treatments for a couple hundred dollars and then stop paying once again and pocket the difference? How many major illnesses do you know of that cost such a pittance to correct or treat?
See, getting insurance means to pay today to cover future potential problems which may or may not occur. You are hedging your bets by buying insurance. Whether or not you ever need it is a mystery only time will tell and if you choose to not buy insurance then you just have to save up your own stash instead IF you are worried about a major and expensive illness befalling you.
Too many of us think that only when one has “insurance” do they get “treatment” when this is not the case.
4) it is not right that anyone should incur debt to cover medical costs
Lots of people think that it is so evil and unfair (and unAmerican) that someone should have to pay for goods and services they receive right? They also think that it is even more hideous and wrong that people should have to go into debt in order to pay for goods and services when they do not have the money on hand to pay for them! Well … ok … in truth they only seem to believe such when it comes to health care. The truth? You know the truth! Many Americans have absolutely no qualms about racking up huge debt to buy cars, big screen televisions, a college education or even homes! But we are to believe that they somehow wince at the mere insinuation that they should do the same to cover some medical bill they get slapped with either because they have no health insurance or because the health insurance policy they do have does not cover whatever it is that they have now contracted? I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday!
Americans are obviously not averse to going into debt to improve their standard of living and to buy things that they cannot afford out of pocket as evidenced by the many recent studies and reports detailing how much debt the average American has for such things. But somehow we are to believe that they are averse to paying for their own health care to save their own lives in the same way? Material things = good debt to have? Ones own health care and paying to save one’s own life = bad debt to have?
Something is upside down here.
5) health insurance is just like auto insurance
Health insurance covers your own person. Auto insurance, while you can get personal coverage included, is mainly to protect and pay damages to the other drivers on the road who are victimized from your own malfeasance or yourself from other negligent drivers who cause you harm. It also protects your pocketbook from that other guy’s lawyer when you wreck into their car because you were talking on your cell phone, putting on makeup or doing something else that you were not personally capable of doing while driving. Note: not EVERYONE is incapable of doing other things like these while driving – just the person that has the accident while doing so.
You getting sick does not affect Angie, unless you live in a socialist state where Angie pays for your health insurance that is. She is under no obligation to pay for your care. She may choose to out of kindness … but she doesn’t have to. You driving your car into the rear of Angie’s car DOES affect Angie. Health insurance is in no way like auto insurance. And I am not even saying that I agree with mandates requiring auto insurance either, just that they are in no way similar when you consider what is being covered and their purpose.
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