| Here's a great blog post on insurance and healthcare: https://healthcareinamerica.us/how-to-ask-good-questions-abo... I think insurance is not an accurate word for the health care industry. I, like you, think of that word as coverage for risk, and in fact that is how the industry started in sixteenth century Netherlands (mentioned in that blog post). But the business of insurance is about defining and measuring risk, and putting people into pools so that you can charge the riskier people more. I don't think that maps well to health care, especially when you consider how good DNA testing will be in a matter of years. "Yup, your kid is in a high-risk pool for leukemia. You get to pay $50,000 a year for family insurance instead of the normal $19,000." [The first number is made up.] Also, if you run an insurance business and someone with a pre-existing condition knocks on your door, their "market" rates will be their cost of treatment as their risk has become a certainty. If you don't think charging people based on your best knowledge of the risk is fair, then it is a government program, a forced redistribution of risk across a larger pool; not insurance. |
Also, as far as I know health insurance companies can't charge different rates based on genetic testing. How would this be different, than, say, laws preventing car insurance companies from charging different premiums based on race?