**This is a cross-post brought over from my younger brother Chip's blog Fish and Chips. I really enjoy reading and sharing his POV with you all. As the younger generation I think he really has a chance to make changes in this world and I really value his opinion! I hope you all enjoy and please leave me any thoughts!**
I'll begin by describing, as I see it, the fundamentals and inadequacies of the market based private insurance system:
Companies - usually - need to turn a profit in order to survive the market. In the health insurance industry a provider must service a sufficient number of individuals (who each pay an equal nontaxable sum monthly) to cover the costs of operation and company employment in order to turn that profit. The problem with the system is that these companies are able to turn away individuals who live at excessive risk. This is kind-of like stacking a deck. The companies are guaranteed a profit because the majority of their clientele live healthy lifestyles and typically will not need to draw from the pooled monthly dues.
Unfortunately, the people who are left uninsured are disproportionately unhealthy risk takers or those that had prior conditions that health insurers refused to cover. This creates, through market based incentives, a two-fold increase the costs of medical care. First, because doctors and health facilities treat the uninsured that require medical attention when ill or injured, they must raise prices elsewhere to cover the costs of those operations or prescriptions in order to maintain a functioning business: remember, these are businesses also - they must profit or they risk closure or bankruptcy. Second, when treatment costs rise health insurers mimic that rise in order to maintain similar levels of profit. This creates a burden on the entire system: a perpetual loop of rising costs.
The solution, therefore, is to run health insurance as a not-for-profit organization. Unfortunately, no private entity is ever going to do that. It then falls to the government to create such a system. A singular national organization will obviously be better than multiple, scattered, regional, smaller health insurers. This will allow everyone to get better care and care more often because the pool is substantially larger (this holds true even when accounting for the increase in individuals of sicker dispositions).
The organization should be run essentially the same way that a current business is run - excepting the practice of turning away potential costumers. The government should......
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