Comments on: What We Expect Of Insurance

By: Jay

Jay — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 04:12:02 +0000

Jill,
I agree with you that health insurance should be for catastrophic coverage. The way the insurance carriers price the policies, you’re really wasting your money if you get anything else.
But, for the most part, you can’t shop around for the best price in health care like you can for pretty much anything else. That is where the “free market” idea breaks down in the health care discussion. Here is one of my experiments to shop around for the best price in health care:
http://www.healthinsurancecolorado.net/blog1/2007/06/28/transparency-pt3/

By: Jill

Jill — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 02:08:03 +0000

I have often thought about this, and my thoughts are that people should expect health insurance to perform much like auto insurance. I believe health insurance should be used as a safety net, reserved for more serious ailments, and not for routine treatment. I believe people have become too accustomed to expect to pay only a copay when they receive treatment. They have no idea how much the treatment actually costs. In most cases, a patient does not even see a bill after receiving medical care. If we expected auto insurance to cover oil changes, new brakes, etc. While we shop around for the best price for these services, I know nobody who shops medical care. I agree there would also be an auto insurance crisis if we did not pay attention to the actual cost of auto maintenance and repairs, got them anyway, and expected our auto carrier to foot the bill.

By: Todd

Todd — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 20:09:07 +0000

Exactly, if a car is worth $3,000, it doesn’t make much sense to cover anything other than liability.