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The point is that if we get the government and employers out of it, the costs will actually shrink.

How can the? If a larger and larger percentage of healthy people opt out of health insurance because of the cost then those remaining are, as I pointed out, the ones who need someone to be paying their bills. The percentage of customers for the insurance companies who file few, if any, claims and which cost the company the least amount per year will drop. The percentage of those who file multiple claims and who cost the insurance company the most will rise. Under that cost model it would be financial suicide for a company to reduce their premiums. The opposite will occur.

Insurance is not supposed to be “monthly payments” for regular visits (this is very common with dental insurance). Insurance is to protect you from financial catastrophy. If you want something more than that, you should be able to buy it - if you can afford it - just like if you want a swimming pool, a yacht or a Ferrari.

Insurance, as I said, is risk avoidance. A risk caught early is more easily and cheaply handled than a risk caught late. As any doctor will tell you, health issues caught early are far easily, and inexpensively, treated than health issues caught later. Remove preventative care like physicals, mamograms, colonscopies, innoculations, and routine screenings and health issues will be missed and won't manifest themselves until they become major health problems. Insurance will truly become catastrophic, and companies will be paying six figures for problems that could have been handled for much less. So health insurance truly is something that should be used frequently and not catastrophically.

Insurance, as I said, is risk avoidance. A risk caught early is more easily and cheaply handled than a risk caught late. As any doctor will tell you, health issues caught early are far easily, and inexpensively, treated than health issues caught later. Remove preventative care like physicals, mamograms, colonscopies, innoculations, and routine screenings and health issues will be missed and won’t manifest themselves until they become major health problems.

I agree. And why would these things cost much money? And why can’t “catastrophic insurance” companies charge rates depending on which of these tests you take?

I think preventative care is a great thing. Getting the government involved in it is, to put it bluntly, wrong.

One thing that is different from you and me is that I focus on a thing that you don’t: I have seen cost paradigm’s set on their ear in my life. I remember when Bill Gates famously said that someday a desktop computer would cost less than $1,000 people thought he was crazy.

With government kicked out of health care and with tort reform, I can see a world of health care where people go to the doctor on a fairly regular basis and a typical visit costs $20. And a broken arm again costs $250 and you can go directly to the lab for your “blood work” and it costs $15.

I can see getting insurance specifically for cancer, specifically for heart disease, etc.

Most importantly, I can see a country returning to Christ and coming to grips with the fact that life is a temporary thing and preserving it at all costs is, well, kinda stupid.

Under that cost model it would be financial suicide for a company to reduce their premiums. The opposite will occur.

I agree. That is why it won’t be the same cost model. Companies won’t go out of business because nobody can afford their service. They will reduce costs. This means, in some cases, less reliable service. But some people drive chevy’s and some drive Mercedes’. Health insurance is like everything else: You get what you can afford.

At least, it should be.

Remember, when the government de-regulated air travel it went from the domain of the upper and upper middle classes to flying busses. And yet it is far safer.

Same will happen with health care if the government butts out.