straight up kg...
Quote:
August 19, 2009
How Free Health Care Got So Expensive
By Steven Malanga - link
....State government mandates and favorable tax treatment in Washington have so distorted the market for health insurance that a generation of Americans now look on medical coverage as something very different from other kinds of insurance that we buy. While we will pay several hundred bucks out of our own pockets to have a plumber come repair a leaky pipe, we'll balk at deductibles and a $50 co-pay for a doctor's visit.
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Our health care model is just goofy. I think the number of people who express awe and disgust when insurers won't provide insurance for pre-existing conditions is an indication of the degree of goofiness in the system and the degree to which people don't under what insurance is.
(....insurance is a hedge against bad things....when you buy insurance you are basically paying someone else to take the risk of something bad happening to you. ie, if there's a 1 in 10 chance that something bad is going to happen and if the cost of that bad thing happening will be $100, then I might pay someone $10 to bear the cost in the event the thing happens. If the bad thing has already happened, then there is no longer a risk of that thing happening, it's a done deal, hence there is nothing to insure.)