Myth Diagnosis - Everyone knows that people without health insurance are more likely to...

Everyone knows that people without health insurance are more likely to die. But are they?

Outside of the few states where it is illegal to deny coverage based on medical history, I am probably uninsurable. Though I’m in pretty good health, I have several latent conditions, including an autoimmune disease. If I lost the generous insurance that I have through The Atlantic, even the most charitable insurer might hesitate to take me on.

So I took a keen interest when, at the fervid climax of the health-care debate in mid-December, a Washington Post blogger, Ezra Klein, declared that Senator Joseph Lieberman, by refusing to vote for a bill with a public option, was apparently “willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands” of uninsured people in order to punish the progressives who had opposed his reelection in 2006. In the ensuing blogstorm, conservatives condemned Klein’s “venomous smear,” while liberals solemnly debated the circumstances under which one may properly accuse one’s opponents of mass murder.

But aside from an exchange between Matthew Yglesias of the Center for American Progress and Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute, few people addressed the question that mattered most to those of us who cannot buy an individual insurance policy at any price—the question that was arguably the health-care debate’s most important: Was Klein (not to mention other like-minded editorialists who cited similar numbers) right? If we lost our insurance, would this gargantuan new entitlement really be the only thing standing between us and an early grave?

Perhaps few people were asking, because the question sounds so stupid. Health insurance buys you health care. Health care is supposed to save your life. So if you don’t have someone buying you health care well, you can complete the syllogism...

His choice obviously is to save up enough money to pay for his own medical care. If in fact everybody needed the same amount of care, we could all just save our own money for medical care, because the insurance cost would be the same as the cost of medical care (actually a bit higher to pay the insurance company).

But in reality, some people need more care than others. There are two broad reasons for that — preexisting medical conditions, and unexpected problems.

The first can’t be handled by insurance, because insurance exists to covered unexpected losses by spreading them over a broad pool of people, so everybody pays a “reasonable” amount and the few that actually get sick receive treatment.

So the first you still have to cover by saving your own money. If as a society we decide that genetic conditions shouldn’t kill people because they are poor, we could set up high-risk pools for prexisting conditions, and as a society we could decide to dedicate tax dollars to the fund. But that has nothing to do with insurance, it’s a decision about charity.

Tne 2nd shouldn’t be affected by pre-existing conditions, but it is likely insurance companies do balk at coverage when there are risks, plus most states would not allow an insurnace company to carve out exceptions on a case-by-case basis. If they could, a lot more people would be able to get insurance for MOST conditions, so the “pre-existing condition” wouldn’t be as big a deal.

However, if everybody with pre-existing conditions got together, they could pool their resources, saving up for those other medical needs. By spreading the risk, they would all get coverage — but that is of course what insurance is, and so it is clear that insurnace companies would provide that service if the government didn’t prohibit it.

Many republicans are pushing the idea of risk pools, the democrats oppose it because it stands in the way of their public single-payer program. If you set up a risk pool, over time it would make individual insurance more affordable, lessening the “need” for a public option.

Folks seem to forget that "medical insurance" does not insure you against the risk of death ~ rather, it insures that you will get an early place in line so that you get treatment now and not later.

The consequence of that sort of "front loading" of the system through widespread application of high ticket insurance throughout a large part of the population is a VERY HIGH PRICE FOR MEDICAL CARE. We really do have to keep a lot of doctors, nurses, hospital beds and high tech equipment on hand.

A friend of mine doesn't have medical insurance and negotiates with doctors, and, as has happened a couple of times, hospitals.

Yes, you can negotiate with doctors and hospitals! Maybe not Humana, but certainly Arlington County!

What happens is that she ends up waiting a bit of time longer for care for her minor, or chronic problems than she would if she had insurance. The doctors have to fit her in to their schedules, but she ends up paying about what your insurance company does for the same services.

Lots of folks probably don't have the capability of negotiating with doctors and hospitals ~ so, they buy insurance. When it comes to dentists, though we all negotiate ~ hopefully for less service than the dentist thinks we need ~ but the times we need service RIGHT NOW D***IT are exceedingly rare with that class of health care practitioner.

It's not surprising that there are studies out there telling us medical insurance doesn't extend our lives! Medical care might, but everybody can get it one way or the other.

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