Why the Secular Apostate Should Still be Blogging

... because he leaves comments like this one on my post on health care.

You blame the insurance company, but you should blame the law.

First, rather than have a national risk pool, the 50 state insurance commissioners control the health insurance vendors in each state. If your state demands you, as an individual, comprise a "pool" of 1, then the companies cannot spread the risk and they will not insure your health. They cannot, because they cannot estimate the risk for an individual. That's just basic math. The same would be true for your car or your house, were auto or homeowner's insurance treated the same way.

Second, again depending on your state, you may be forced to buy a lot of insurance you don't want. For example, as a single man, you probably did not need maternity coverage. Maternity coverage is expensive. But virtually all states mandate that every policy include it. When I lived in Illinois, all insurers were required to cover acupuncture and chiropracty. I don't have a problem with acupuncturists, chiropractors, or their patients, but I just don't buy into it, and I certainly don't want to pay for it as a part of my insurance bill. But the coverage was a political decision made by the legislature and forced on the companies.

Third, all insurance companies - or the government - must decide what procedures they will cover. In a private market (which, in the US, is restricted to HSAs), coverage is decided by the marketplace. If company X won't cover MRIs and there is a market for insurance that does, it will get covered. In government-run health care, political clout drives coverage. That's why Canadians can be denied treatment for advanced colorectal cancer, but can get sex-change operations. The transsexual community is well-organized and generally supported by the Left, and late-stage colorectal cancer victims simply don't have much political clout. They don't even make giant papier-mache puppet heads for G-20 protests.

So be careful what you wish for. As long as you don't get very sick, national health care works like a charm. It's at the treatment margins where the problems crop up. That's also where the vast majority of the money is spent, which is why the US has the most expensive health care and the highest cancer survival rates (c.f., Coleman, et. al, Lancet - Oncology, V. 9, #8, 2008) in the world (including Australia). It's a redux of the old saw, "Your money or your life!"

They can have my money. YMMV.

Alternately, I can just pirate his comments and put them up here.

:-)