[oh_sigh]

Why should young people subsidize the health care of old people who almost certainly have a higher net worth than the young people?

Remember with Obamacare about how there was a huge push to get young people to sign up for it, because without healthy young people paying too high premiums, the system would fall over with the costs of the elderly? Maybe that is why young people didn't want to sign up for the ACA, and they needed to enforce 'penalties' for not having health care.

If young people were actually charged a fair market rate for their health insurance, they would sign up in droves because it would be dirt cheap. But when you make them pay far more than is reasonable, because old people need health insurance too, then that is how you get a system where no one wants to sign up for it until they are legally forced to.

The ACA in this sense completely subverted the point of insurance. So, maybe the right doesn't understand insurance, but neither does the left.

[robbiep]

You realise that is literally how insurance works though, right? If you tranched age groups or risk profiles then you would have those needing to use insurance unable to afford coverage. Which defeats the purpose

[oh_sigh]

No, that is not how insurance works. Insurance works well when you group people with similar risk profiles together, not by grouping people with dissimilar risk profiles together.

Imagine a world where a 20 year old would be able to buy a 10-year term life insurance policy for the same amount that a 90 year old can. That is essentially what the ACA attempted to provide.

[maxxxxx]

Young people also will get old and not all of them will be multimillionaires so it makes sense that one generation pays for the previous because one day they will be in the same place.

[oh_sigh]

How well does that system work for a generation that produces fewer adults than are present in the generation?

Instead of paying for other peoples health insurance and then other people pay for mine, why can't I just save the money that I would be paying in premiums above and beyond what the rational amount would be and then pay for my own health care when I get older(or, pay for the higher premiums when I get older)?

[mindslight]

It's ridiculously amazing that you're getting downvoted for your general point. Wishful thinking won't change market incentives, although it will help make some profiteers rich.

The young (and healthy) paying for the old (and sick) is a function that can only be provided by government, or bona fide charity. It's impossible for this to be provided by private companies because, in line with the denial behavior we're seeing, it's rational for any company to take on the overpaying low-cost customers, tell the underpaying high-cost customers to go elsewhere, and then pocket the surplus.

Having said that, I'm not personally a believer in single payer fixing everything. It certainly should be possible for routine care for financially able people to be provided completely on the open market. Immediate common-sense based reforms would go a long way. For example, hospitals/providers should be required to have one and only one price list for all payers, published months in advance. And the bundling of "insurance" with employment should be outright prohibited

[maxxxxx]

Are you willing to forego medical care if you have an accident tomorrow and your savings account isn't big enough?

[oh_sigh]

I'm not arguing against insurance - I'm arguing against the government forcing insurance upon groups of people with extremely dissimilar risk profiles and forcing the younger, poorer group to pay to subsidize the older, richer group.

[knieveltech]

Ultimately, there is no point to insurance beyond generating profit for someone.