Hear me out on this, please.
Let’s say that I spend $5k on health insurance in a year, but don’t go to the doctor or have any medical issues in that year. Where does my money go? It disappears. I basically just gave away my money, and received nothing in return. However, if I took that $5k and simply put it into a personal savings account instead of giving it away to a health insurance provider - that money stays right there if and whenever I decide to use it. It even collects interest.
I realize that with a health insurance provider, you’re (supposedly) getting discounted rates on medical services - but if your money is just disappearing into thin air if you don’t happen to need those medical services in a given year, are you really saving money? It just seems like a really big scam to me - what am I missing?
Because you probably won’t get a multi-million-dollar cancer, but might. Or, looked at another way, someone will get cancer, and with insurance everyone is just a little less well off, instead of a few people being absolutely ruined.
I know little about American healthcare, but that’s how insurance in general works. (From what I’ve heard, there’s also a premium that just goes to anticompetitive bullshit in that specific case)
Thats how health care works in civilized countries. In the US its more like “everyone is way worse off, the people who get really sick are still ruined because insurance fucks them over and you still have to pay for going to the doctor”.
Exactly. Health insurance covers more than I could ever save. The fact that we all she pretty well means that well need more medical support for a longer time when were old. Once your personal savings account is empty you won’t have acces to expensive treatments anymore.
The more people buy in to healthcare, the cheaper the individual cost gets.
…in theory.