[bradleyjg]

> "your money or your life"

> (I've heard quotes in the 100's of K even in the 1-2 M)

The thing is that no one+ has that kind of money. So it ends being your money or his life, over and over again. This has long since moved from the space of individual decision making to public policy. But we in the United States refuse to face up to that. We like to pretend that the doctor and patient should be the only ones that have any say in deciding what to do and if anyone outside that room balks at the price tag, no matter how high, they are an evil insurance company or government bureaucrat that doesn't care about human life or something. That's naive and silly. Spending $1 million of public or collective funds on a single individual isn't something that should be done automatically or that we should do out of a sense of guilt.

+Okay a few, but not enough to make a market.

[DennisP]

That's what insurance is for. When you buy insurance you're making an agreement to socialize risk, so you're never faced with a $1M bill to save your life.

[bradleyjg]

Health insurance, despite the name, isn’t insurance.

Insurance is paying small sums, at EV negative cost, to mitigate the risk from a rare but very expensive cost.

Health insurance isn’t underwritten and pays out for routine expenses. It isn’t insurance.

[rejschaap]

I think you are trying to say it is more than an insurance, because it also pays out for routine expenses?

[bradleyjg]

No, it’s not a strict superset because of the underwriting issue.

[DennisP]

Even without underwriting it's still insurance, which is "a practice or arrangement by which a company or government agency provides a guarantee of compensation for specified loss, damage, illness, or death in return for payment of a premium" according to Google's dictionary.

[bradleyjg]

If there was a soup kitchen that charged something, maybe on a sliding scale, but not nearly enough to cover costs, it would meat the dictionary definition of a "restaurant". Calling it that would nonetheless be misleading.

[tcbawo]

Until it costs $1 millions for everyone, then the system breaks down. Every actor is trying to make as much as they can before the music stops.

[Amygaz]

Why would it cost $1M for everyone? Not everyone has a disease or an accident. And if we were all greatly diseased at the same time, the price tag would be the least of our worry.