cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/23245181
this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2024
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why even have insurance?
genuine question, as i never had to sign up for insurance; and i don't really see why when i see comics like this or people not being given insurance money when they face injuries or what have you.
wouldn't it be better to just pay it out from your savings/bank account directly? since it just comes off as just a legalized scam.
Do you have $800,000 dollars sloshing around to cover brain cancer?
A couple reasons I guess is that most people simply don't have the discipline to save up very large amounts money without touching it, and doing so could also takes years if you ever could even save enough for whatever it is.
~~discipline~~ discretionary income
Yeah I was writing with the assumption that you are at least lower middle class minimum since if you are working class in the US neither saving up or having insurance that will actually ensure you are options and you just have to live with being shit out of luck if something happens.
The general idea is that the insurance will cover for everything whenever you get it.
So the insured has the security of large unforseeable health expenses being covered. Catch brain cancer a year after getting insured - you're covered. Have an accident? You're covered.
The insurance generates a profit by adjusting the dues of its members according to their health history and risk and the statistical security of the really expensive stuff being very rare. So more money is coming in than going out.
That's how it's supposed to work. That's not how it works in reality.
The problem is that insurance companies negotiate with hospitals to receive discounted rates of service. If you're completely uninsured and receive treatment, you're going to be charged the non-discounted price. There are things like a Health Savings Account which works exactly how you'd want, you just pay into a pre-tax account and can use that money for medical expenses, and while that gives you access to discounted prices you'll still need to build up thousands before you can realistically seek medical care.
The system has been fully captured by healthcare companies, who use their full control of the system to make it as awful as possible. You're damned if you, and damned if you don't.
To help maintain US GDP
IMO/understanding, insurance as a concept of pooling funding and then paying out for those who need it most makes perfect sense. It's the same general idea as taxes going to public services.
In practice, when it's private for-profit insurance, I don't know of any design where it's not fundamentally bad. Because 1) You're inserting into the equation a whole entity whose purpose is not to meet people's needs with the funding but to make money off of it and 2) It undermines the point of the shared pool being as big as possible to make the math work out more practically. Instead of one big pool (such as with a federal government), you get lots of smaller pools, like the asinine US health insurance industry. And if the pool is too small, it becomes less effectual for covering anyone.
So basically, creating for-profit out of institutions that should just be pooled funding for public services is where it falls apart.
No??? Paying out of pocket is tens of thousands of dollars. A regular doctors visit would go from 50 dollars to 400, and so on.
Also doctors can simply refuse to see you if you don’t have insurance.
I have a prescription that costs me 2.50 for three months in Belarus. In the US it would cost me 950 dollars for 30 days.
Hold on. Doctors don't really cost that much. They bill that much because they know insurance will only pay a fraction. If you tell them you don't have insurance, you pay a more reasonable amount - I just saw a cardiologist for $150 out of pocket because I lost my coverage, and have to wait until January 1st for new coverage. With insurance, they'd bill around $300, I'd pay a $75 copay, then my insurance would refuse to pay the rest because I haven't reached my deductible yet, so I'd be billed for the remainder, and insurance would pocket the $300-400 per month I pay, plus whatever my employer pays, which is easily over $1000 a month. So yeah, why do we have insurance? Because a few years ago, the government decided to require everyone have health insurance or pay a fine, so insurance companies would have more healthy people paying in to offset the cost of people who actually use their insurance, with the intended result of cost going down. Instead, they now have a captive audience, so instead, cost went up. Thanks Obama.
That’s entirely up the doctor. Most do not do that. They’ll charge you the full amount since they can get in hot water with insurance if they have two prices for insured and uninsured patients.
Also what? Medical insurance is not federally regulated. You don’t need have insurance.
Also get fucked if you have a chronic condition. Good luck getting expensive medication without insurance.