>Demonstrably so. Just look at pre-Obamacare "high risk pools" for concrete examples. I'm obviously not talking about individuals who are so expensive to profi

>Demonstrably so. Just look at pre-Obamacare "high risk pools" for concrete examples. I'm obviously not talking about individuals who are so expensive to profitably insure that they can't afford the premiums. I've already stated that the market isn't going to work for them. It's not the size of the pool that's causing problems here; the contents of the pool are the problem. >They just pick the healthy ones, if allowed. They also pick the less healthy ones that are able to afford to pay the higher premiums it takes to make it worth it for the insurance company to cover them, assuming the insurance company is allowed to charge such premiums. There is plenty of money to be made there. Where there isn't any money to be made is in people who know they have high expenses and can't afford to pay them. >You are using some very weird definitions of "charity". Are you taking issue with my characterization of government welfare as charity? Why should it be excluded from such a broad category? >Obamacare's subsidized premiums aren't shouldered by the insurance companies, they're provided by the government. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about people who have pre-existing conditions, who are definitely going to cost the insurance company more than they're going to be paying in, regardless of subsidies, who the health insurance company can't charge more money to and can't deny coverage to. >Insurance paying out more than premiums taken in for a particular subscriber isn't "charity", it's how insurance works. Actually that hinges on whether it's known before the agreement is made that the particular subscriber is going to have more paid out on his behalf than he is going to pay in. If it is known, then that's not insurance. It's charity.