Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski
Preventative care not being covered leads to em not using it, leads to someone else paying em's big costs. It is hard enough getting em to covered preventative care.
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No one's ever had cheap preventative care to credibly test that theory. And a theory is all that is.
A true market price has never existed for preventative care since the 40s, when a TPA system was introduced and warped the market.
If what I'm proposing were introduced, all costs, including preventative care, would fall radically. And insurers acting as TPAs would infect the marketplace 1/10th as much as they do now.
You don't trust average Joe to take care of himself if he saved 50-60% on premiums and a similar percentage on preventative care?
The argument you offer is one used by half shrewd minds to disguise "we need insurers and govt. to manage people's health care" as economically wise policy.* (And really, is a guy who doesn't use TPA administered preventative care somehow going to use it less when it's cheaper and easier to buy directly? How's that even possible?) If we make health care truly cheap and people choose to spend elsewhere, that's their foolish choice. At least the cost of the catastrophic care they'll inevitably require will also be cheap, so the burden to those of us carrying them will still be less than it is now.
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* I don't think you're using it that way. I think you believe it economically refutes my proposal. For a lot of others, however, it's dressing up nanny state aims as math-supported policy.
