Last Tuesday night (Election Day), I was listening to two rational people irrationally discuss healthcare. Here’s the short summary:
Liberal: We need universal healthcare.
Conservative: You want socialism?
We need a more informed discussion. So, let’s start with some basics.
- According to the Milliman Medical Index, the average American family of four spends $28k per year on health care, which includes the cost of insurance that is either purchased by that family or purchased for that family by an employer, as well as deductibles, co-pays and other out-of-pocket expenses.
- Health care costs can be crippling to the average American family, even if insured.
- Health care costs are a major financial burden to businesses that provide health insurance to their employees.
- Insurability based on the absence of pre-existing conditions makes sense to profit-driven insurance companies which have a compelling business reason to define and measure foreseeable risks and avoid known costs (i.e., pre-existing conditions).
- Private profit-driven insurance companies take on millions of dollars of risk on a per person basis even if the insureds have no pre-existing conditions.
- For any given insured risk, premiums…
