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Now I am curious why you buy health insurance. Are you insuring against the risk of a high cost claim, like a heart attack or premature baby, cancer or transpl

Now I am curious why you buy health insurance. Are you insuring against the risk of a high cost claim, like a heart attack or premature baby, cancer or transplant? Is it just something you think you should have (but from your comments, dont really use the healthcare system very often)?

qgin 5y ago
I actually didn’t have health insurance a few years ago and signed up for one of the non religious “health shares”. But I ended up in the hospital for a few days with a condition that was never fully diagnosed before I was discharged and the health share refused to pay anything and I was left with a $45k bill. For just 3 days of inpatient. Imagine cancer or a car accident. If you have no income or assets, you can often get that written off by the hospital, but if you have income or assets, they will absolutely bill you for everything and a major health event like that could easily rack up $500k or more in bills.
- mjamilkowski 5y ago
  Oh yeah it can get crazy expensive. I was just asking to gauge your sense of risk aversion. One of the things I think is missing is being able to bring value to you even if you do not have claims. Kind of like how we have responded to others in this conversation, we are trying to get a membership card in your wallet that provides you with a sense of value even if you only go to the pharmacy for Slim Jims. We think theres an opportunity to engage with people in a way that encourages maintenance, or sustaining, your health, or if you think, improve your health. All too often we wait for someone to get sick before offering care - we want to get in front of that. Identify and manage emerging issues. and so on.
  - qgin 5y ago
    Absolutely, if there was a way for insurance to provide value on a non-catastrophic basis, I’d be all for it. Right now it feels like The worst of all worlds. Expensive and only useful in worst-case circumstances.
- aquaphile 5y ago
  My family tried the "health share" thing too, before we created Evry Health. We used to have proper insurance, then post-ACA the prices were so outrageous it became a choice of a) pay for normal insurance via ACA or b) save/pay for our kids' education. Given those choices, we opted to use Medi-share? for a few years.

qgin 5y ago

I actually didn’t have health insurance a few years ago and signed up for one of the non religious “health shares”. But I ended up in the hospital for a few days with a condition that was never fully diagnosed before I was discharged and the health share refused to pay anything and I was left with a $45k bill. For just 3 days of inpatient. Imagine cancer or a car accident. If you have no income or assets, you can often get that written off by the hospital, but if you have income or assets, they will absolutely bill you for everything and a major health event like that could easily rack up $500k or more in bills.

mjamilkowski 5y ago
Oh yeah it can get crazy expensive. I was just asking to gauge your sense of risk aversion. One of the things I think is missing is being able to bring value to you even if you do not have claims. Kind of like how we have responded to others in this conversation, we are trying to get a membership card in your wallet that provides you with a sense of value even if you only go to the pharmacy for Slim Jims. We think theres an opportunity to engage with people in a way that encourages maintenance, or sustaining, your health, or if you think, improve your health. All too often we wait for someone to get sick before offering care - we want to get in front of that. Identify and manage emerging issues. and so on.
- qgin 5y ago
  Absolutely, if there was a way for insurance to provide value on a non-catastrophic basis, I’d be all for it. Right now it feels like The worst of all worlds. Expensive and only useful in worst-case circumstances.
aquaphile 5y ago
My family tried the "health share" thing too, before we created Evry Health. We used to have proper insurance, then post-ACA the prices were so outrageous it became a choice of a) pay for normal insurance via ACA or b) save/pay for our kids' education. Given those choices, we opted to use Medi-share? for a few years.