It would apply sunlight to costs and individuals would make rational decisions about what they were willing to pay for.
Lane
There exists a sufficient body of individuals who pay their own premiums (like me, for example) such that a trend like this would be proven by now, and I don't think it has been.
I'm not saying there is NO savings. Only that there is no evidence there would be SIGNIFICANT savings, and certainly not enough to materially change overall health care costs as was suggested by the OP.
IN this respect, the nature of health insurance is somewhat different from that of, say, auto insurance. With auto insurance, you have a couple accidents and your insurance premium goes up -- but others in the pool may be essentially unaffected by it. With health insurance, if I have a $100,000 hospital stay, my premium will not go up any more than the others in my insurance pool's will.
The problem, of course, is that eventually, the healthy people in my pool will bail out and go somewhere else that's cheaper leaving only sick people in my pool, which forces ALL those person's premiums to go up. This is a bonafide problem that I think needs to be, and can be, addressed. |
