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> You insure yourself against exceptional things. This isn't strictly true. We insure against the unexceptional as well. With regards to your specific example,

> You insure yourself against exceptional things. This isn't strictly true. We insure against the unexceptional as well. With regards to your specific example, I think refunding the flu shot is perfectly reasonable and an elegant solution to solving the social problem of getting people to be healthy. We all pay higher premiums but only those that actually do the preventative stuff get any benefit. Put another way, if health care plans were $1/month cheaper and the cost of the flu vaccine was $12, I'm pretty sure we'd see our already lackluster yearly vaccination rate plummet.

GolDDranks 2y ago
You are correct but not taking it far enough. Vaccines are (often) cheap and preventative for diseases that are not cheap to treat. I bet there are many cases where taking the vaccine should not just be refundable, but actually discount your rate.
MajimasEyepatch 2y ago
On the other hand, imagine if you had to go through your car insurance every time you had your oil changed or your tires rotated (going for an annual wellness check). Or worse, every time you had to fill up your gas tank (picking up a regular prescription). Ideally this sort of routine "maintenance" work would be affordable and accessible to anyone, but we have layers of middlemen in the way because the entire healthcare industry in this country is designed to run everything through insurance.
- HarryHirsch 2y ago
  And then you have phenomena like a restaurant being closed for deep cleaning because an outbreak of Hepatitis A was traced back to it - a sick employee dragged himself to work instead of being at home curing their disease. So you go and take personal responsibility for your liver and take the Hep A shot yourself. One wishes the government supported life, liberty and happiness of its people and offered labour protection, sick leave and healthcare to its weakest citizens. Vaccinations are a few hundred per shot, and the part-time worker hasn't got insurance or the spare cash.

GolDDranks 2y ago

You are correct but not taking it far enough. Vaccines are (often) cheap and preventative for diseases that are not cheap to treat. I bet there are many cases where taking the vaccine should not just be refundable, but actually discount your rate.

MajimasEyepatch 2y ago

On the other hand, imagine if you had to go through your car insurance every time you had your oil changed or your tires rotated (going for an annual wellness check). Or worse, every time you had to fill up your gas tank (picking up a regular prescription). Ideally this sort of routine "maintenance" work would be affordable and accessible to anyone, but we have layers of middlemen in the way because the entire healthcare industry in this country is designed to run everything through insurance.

HarryHirsch 2y ago
And then you have phenomena like a restaurant being closed for deep cleaning because an outbreak of Hepatitis A was traced back to it - a sick employee dragged himself to work instead of being at home curing their disease. So you go and take personal responsibility for your liver and take the Hep A shot yourself. One wishes the government supported life, liberty and happiness of its people and offered labour protection, sick leave and healthcare to its weakest citizens. Vaccinations are a few hundred per shot, and the part-time worker hasn't got insurance or the spare cash.