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Yeah, that's clearly reaching into "better have insurance" territory. I'm not the type who is prone to take insurance for trivialities, if I drop my phone the

by usrusr 5y ago

Yeah, that's clearly reaching into "better have insurance" territory. I'm not the type who is prone to take insurance for trivialities, if I drop my phone the last thing I'd want is dealing with a claims process (some people seem to enjoy that kind of stuff, trying to "win at insurance"). But in this case it was the reverse, not "buy some service, hope for insurance to accept the bill" but "tell insurance that there's a problem, let them do the rest". I'd have been glad to have that procurement problem outsourced even if they only paid for a small fraction of the bill (just big enough to make them still care for price)

dredmorbius 5y ago
I'd argue that this is a case where splitting out coverage and relying on individuals to assess and specifically subscribe to a given benefit makes little sense. People are terrible at assessing risks. This may mean overassessing limited risks, and underassessing large risks. Companies have a house advantage. They know the risks, and the marketing and persuasion methods. Splitting out and dividing complex risk-based goods and marketing these individually turns out to be highly profitable. Healthcare decisions in the moment are not normal market transactions. There are any number of failures of consent, informedness, access to alternatives, asymmetry of consequences, fiducuary roles, perverse incentives, and numerous other issues. There are tremendous variations in individual ability to pay or afford options. Regardless of individual need, in a society with highly unequal wealth and/or income, access varies tremendously. If air transport is useful, viable, and effective, then it should be made available to all, contingent on assessed medical benefit and actual availablity. Where allocation decisions need to be made, they should not be made on a market basis. And the consequence is precisely the surprise 5-figure-plus billings noted in the article I'd linked earlier.

by usrusr 5y ago

dredmorbius 5y ago

I'd argue that this is a case where splitting out coverage and relying on individuals to assess and specifically subscribe to a given benefit makes little sense. People are terrible at assessing risks. This may mean overassessing limited risks, and underassessing large risks. Companies have a house advantage. They know the risks, and the marketing and persuasion methods. Splitting out and dividing complex risk-based goods and marketing these individually turns out to be highly profitable. Healthcare decisions in the moment are not normal market transactions. There are any number of failures of consent, informedness, access to alternatives, asymmetry of consequences, fiducuary roles, perverse incentives, and numerous other issues. There are tremendous variations in individual ability to pay or afford options. Regardless of individual need, in a society with highly unequal wealth and/or income, access varies tremendously. If air transport is useful, viable, and effective, then it should be made available to all, contingent on assessed medical benefit and actual availablity. Where allocation decisions need to be made, they should not be made on a market basis. And the consequence is precisely the surprise 5-figure-plus billings noted in the article I'd linked earlier.