Tuesday, January 16, 2007

An interesting Cato article?! Health insurance vs. health cost insulation

Hell must be colder than today’s Minnesota. There’s a Cato article I actually think has something interesting to say:

Cato Unbound » Blog Archive » Insulation vs. Insurance (Arnold Kling)

... How many American families have proper health insurance?

a) over 90 percent.
b) between 80 and 90 percent.
c) between 10 and 80 percent.
d) less than 10 percent.

Given that about 15 percent of American families do not have health insurance, the correct answer would appear to be (b). However, in my opinion, the correct answer is (d).

The health coverage most Americans have is what I call “insulation,” not insurance. Rather than insuring them against risk, most families’ health plans insulate them from paying for most health care bills, large and small. ...

It’s basically a call for health savings accounts and the like. Anything like this implemented by the GOP would be a catastrophe. We may see interesting experiments in states with GOP governors and democratic legislatures however.

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