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However, being sold something like health insurance as hedging risk is bullshit. There is no risk in needing to provide healthcare to a population, its a given

However, being sold something like health insurance as hedging risk is bullshit. There is no risk in needing to provide healthcare to a population, its a given, though its not always equal cost per person. However, something like crop insurance allows one to take the up front risk of buying a ton of seed and machines while hedging against the off chance that drought, fire, pest or rain ruins a crop before it can be harvested months later.

pdonis 2y ago
> being sold something like health insurance as hedging risk is bullshit. More precisely, what is now called "health insurance" in countries like the US is mostly not insurance, because it does not involve costly, rare, unpredictable events, which are the kinds of events that are insurable risks. What should happen is that those kinds of things (for example, insurance against injuries in accidents) should be separate from the provision of predictable health care services, which most health care services are.
- jethro_tell 2y ago
  To be fair, accidents and large health issues are relatively predictable in any population. What makes health insurance particularly predatory, is the attempt to carve around segments of the population to make money in something that everyone needs. Almost all accident insurance could be grouped under occupational and transportation related insurance. The remaining accident insurance would be insanely small across almost all segments of any population.
  - pdonis 2y ago
    > accidents and large health issues are relatively predictable in any population. Yes, which makes insurance feasible for such things to the extent that they are rare and unpredictable for particular individuals. (Note that many "large health issues" are not necessarily unpredictable for particular individuals.) > What makes health insurance particularly predatory, is the attempt to carve around segments of the population to make money in something that everyone needs. I think the biggest problem is what I said before, that what we call "health insurance" actually includes many things that are not insurance and should not be sold as insurance. If we remove the things that should not be insurance in the first place, I agree that what's left over should be feasible to handle using ordinary insurance practices as is done in other areas.

pdonis 2y ago

> being sold something like health insurance as hedging risk is bullshit. More precisely, what is now called "health insurance" in countries like the US is mostly not insurance, because it does not involve costly, rare, unpredictable events, which are the kinds of events that are insurable risks. What should happen is that those kinds of things (for example, insurance against injuries in accidents) should be separate from the provision of predictable health care services, which most health care services are.

jethro_tell 2y ago
To be fair, accidents and large health issues are relatively predictable in any population. What makes health insurance particularly predatory, is the attempt to carve around segments of the population to make money in something that everyone needs. Almost all accident insurance could be grouped under occupational and transportation related insurance. The remaining accident insurance would be insanely small across almost all segments of any population.
- pdonis 2y ago
  > accidents and large health issues are relatively predictable in any population. Yes, which makes insurance feasible for such things to the extent that they are rare and unpredictable for particular individuals. (Note that many "large health issues" are not necessarily unpredictable for particular individuals.) > What makes health insurance particularly predatory, is the attempt to carve around segments of the population to make money in something that everyone needs. I think the biggest problem is what I said before, that what we call "health insurance" actually includes many things that are not insurance and should not be sold as insurance. If we remove the things that should not be insurance in the first place, I agree that what's left over should be feasible to handle using ordinary insurance practices as is done in other areas.