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"They aren't assuming anything. They know that healthcare in the US is hit-or-miss, that it is normally for people to move between having and not having healthc
by perl4ever 6y ago
"They aren't assuming anything. They know that healthcare in the US is hit-or-miss, that it is normally for people to move between having and not having healthcare throughout a lifetime."
That's a general complaint that has nothing to do with insurance being a cost you pay out of your take-home salary in the US.
Your anecdote seemed to be predicated on an accounting difference between the US and Canada, that the Chinese supposedly didn't know about. I'm saying that doesn't really exist. The sort of people who adopt would have a job with insurance, but the price of the insurance would not be included in their salary.
In my lifetime, I have been uninsured, insured by my employer, on an ACA (Obamacare) plan, etc. But never been in the situation where I was making a good salary and paying full price out of it for a health insurance policy, like people do with car insurance. Nor have I ever known anyone who did. Of course, somebody probably has, somehow, but it's not common, let alone a norm that some government would assume.
- sandworm101 6y agoI never said my friend had a job. Part of the problem, in the US, is the link between employment and insurance. My friend earned reasonable money as a moderately-sucessful artist but did not have an employer. In the US that would mean paying out of pocket. In canada he didn't have to pay a dime.
- PaulAJ 6y agoAlso the self-employed in the USA have to pay over the odds for rubbish schemes. Large employers can be assumed to employ mostly healthy people, but an individual is more likely to want health insurance if they already know they are a bad risk. This "moral hazard" means that selling health insurance to the self-employed is a money-losing proposition unless you screw them at every opportunity.
- sokoloff 6y agoI’m no fan of health insurance as currently instantiated, but I don’t see it as screwing them at every opportunity if they are actuarially unprofitable otherwise.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- fhars 6y agoAh, yes, the good old supply and demand theory of health: if you can‘t pay for your healthcare, you obviously have no need for it, because needs are only things you are willing and able to pay for.
- sokoloff 6y agoIt’s more like “if the cost to serve a broad population P is $X, I don’t think it’s screwing them to say ‘the price cannot be lower than $X’ because we are a health insurance company, not a charity.” I think you’re arguing that perhaps health outcomes should not be funded by private for-profit insurance companies and I’d agree, but while it is, this outcome seems grounded in actuarially sound math.
- lonelappde 6y agoHow is charging X more for Y's behavior not screwing X?
- sokoloff 6y agoI’m genuinely not understanding the X and Y category or behavior you’re contemplating here. Is Y’s behavior being on average healthier and therefore less costly to insure?
- labawi 6y agoDepends on framing. If you divide the population by an arbitrary standard with a very high health bias (employed, in big co), and adjust payments accordingly, then those on the wrong side of your arbitrary standard get shafted. The second group may be unprofitable with lower payments, but the insurer doesn't even want the second group, the profits are from decreased expenditures on the first group.
- perl4ever 6y agoWell, if I was the Chinese government, it sure wouldn't make sense to me to let him adopt in either country regardless.