“Don’t doctors take Econ classes as undergraduates, or are all those now taught by Paul Krugman types?”
Not a doctor, but both my micro and macro econ classes used textbooks WRITTEN by that lying sack of **** Krugman.
Insurance is a scam. The guy in the article couldn’t afford the treatment, he couldn’t afford the monthly insurance payments, and putting money in the bank “for a rainy day” was the smartest thing he could do.
Insurance companies never lose. There is profit to be made. And in the fundamental principle of Insurance - they are to hold your funds for you, and then provide the up-front if something should happen. They expect you to continue to make payments into their system after the issue is resolved and you’re feeling better.
So it’s like walking into a bank with an agreement for “An open loan, whenever I need it” and “I’ll just start paying you now. I may need it a month down the road, a year or possibly never.”
With such a statement loss is assumed. A company doesn’t want “loss” so they do whatever is necessary to keep you paying and not taking. I mean, duh.
Real problems occur when the service vendor (Doctors, supply companies, medical technical companies, etc) find this sort of thing to be a cash-cow. An MRI is certainly a fine piece of equipment, but to charge $10,000 for a scan regimen is a bit ... steep. But the insurance “will pay for it”. When the insurance companies refused to pay such high prices (That’s far beyond the contribution of the Insured customer) the courts and the government stepped in and required them to pay it.
So as usual - the root of ALL this problem is government. Were it insurance, they would keep prices far, far down to keep their losses at a minimum. Insurance adjusters and price-setters are onhand to negotiate with these companies that want to charge $100 for an aspirin (These are real numbers, btw)
The government created the problem, and now they want to sell us a solution. That is how government works, and it needs to be simply taken out.
Stop paying taxes, resist this government, give them nothing. No more. No compromises. Whatever it is they want you to do : Do the opposite. They are not out for your best interests.. .They are out for your money.