It's insurance. We pool together a bunch of people's money (plus money the company puts in on behalf of the people in this case). We say that some of them will

It's insurance. We pool together a bunch of people's money (plus money the company puts in on behalf of the people in this case). We say that some of them will cost a bunch and some of them next to nothing. With enough people, the costs average out and it should be manageable. Because AOL is self-insuring, they take the risk that the high cost folks will balance out the low cost folks. The answer to your question is simple. We pay $1,000,000 not to keep one person alive, but because that person is part of a risk pool which only works if it pays out when something catastrophic happens. The pool would quickly fall apart if it could say, "your parents paid in, but we don't think you're worth that much money." I'm not an expert, but I believe that Obamacare removed lifetime maximums and the ability to deny coverage based on preexisting conditions. Anderson is probably angry that his costs per individual aren't capped anymore. He happened to pick the least sympathetic way to get that message across.