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As long as it exists, private health insurance will incentivize providers to cherry-pick, lemon-drop, and sell insurance that they have every intention of not m
by jjoonathan 6y ago
As long as it exists, private health insurance will incentivize providers to cherry-pick, lemon-drop, and sell insurance that they have every intention of not making good on. Those are the core "innovations" they are in a position to deliver, and they are the core innovations that get delivered. The concept is evil, the act of carrying it out is evil, and regulators are to blame precisely to the extent that they allow private health insurance to exist in the first place. They are complicit, to be sure, but "simply following incentives" does not absolve the private side of this equation from moral responsibility. Legal responsibility, yes, moral responsibility, no. Hence: evil.
- kube-system 6y agoWhat would a moral insurance company do to fulfill their moral obligation in the above example?
- jjoonathan 6y agoAre they a company that maximizes their profit or are they moral? In this case, the profit motive points in the wrong direction, so they can't be both.
- kube-system 6y agoThe implied “all for-profit companies are evil” argument is radically oversimplified, IMO. It is possible to maximize profit by efficiently providing value. Most of the downward pressure to cut corners in any industry is not from profiteers but from customers themselves.