The ACA made this standard. It’s been like this for a long time.
When we were hiring a lot of people out of college, I spent way more time than I expected teaching them about how healthcare works and how to find their own information. We found that a lot of them would build their idea about how health insurance works from years of reading Reddit posts: They thought visiting the doctor was always going to be a $1000 bill or a single accident was going to medically bankrupt them, because those are the stories they saw on Reddit. I would explain things like the free annual physical and many just wouldn’t believe me. It’s really tough to cut through the confusion out there.
I would argue this has severe caveats. I knew a girl in college who was billed over 400$ to test for PCOS, which is one of those diseases that 1) affects just women 2) is underdiagnosed but has severe systemic effects like facial hair growth, diabetes and obesity...
But if they do anything other than extremely basic tests, like blood pressure at the "free annual physical" you will be billed, ridiculous amounts you have no way of knowing in advance.
During these "free" preventative checkups, if your doctor asks if you have any other medical issues to discuss, having an answer other than "no" can change the visit from a free preventative visit into a standard non-free office visit.
These are items you receive along with your insurance.
They are not insurable events and they are not “covered” like an insurable event.
Predictable, regularly occurring events cannot be covered by insurance by definition. You can’t adjust it, you can’t assemble a risk pool, etc.
We use the word “insurance” to mean “nice things that I like” but I think we’d have more enthusiasm for socialized medicine if we knew how much of “insurance” was nothing of the sort.
That's not quite correct. Many patients forgo preventive screening procedures even when they're free (to the patient). Medical insurer actuaries are aware of this and price policies accordingly.
So exercise, eating healthy, fasting, brushing/flossing teeth, consistent sleep schedule, daily sun exposure, good relationships, and stress management all depend on a health insurance plan?
Well, it doesn't have to "depend" on the health insurance plans. But there are definitely ones that reward you in some way for doing some/all of these. Mine literally gives me cash back for doing an annual physical.
You certainly need to "pay" for those yourself, insurance or not (I guess that's probably your point). Going for a run doesn't go on any billing schedule or contribute to GDP, it's all self-funded from your own personal resources of time and energy.
Sam Vimes 'Boots' Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness
>The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.
>Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.
>But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
What the heck does the price of boots have to do with any of this? All footwear eventually wears out, and if you're talking about athletic shoes the more expensive ones are often less durable (they can improve performance a little).
Sheesh, it's an analogy. If you can spend afford to spend a little more money now (on preventative care) it can help being ruined later.
Fpr example, paying for a diabetic's insulin/blood sugar testing vs. amputating a limb, with the bonus of a working individual now likely ending up on disability
I think you may be missing the point: preventative treatment is typically much less expensive, for instance behaviour and dietary changes do not require drugs at all and avoiding some conditions can be helped by drugs which have long since come off patents.
But even with your point, all insurance companies I've ever had cover with in the UK have had some element of support for preventing illness (periodic assessments, support material and trackers) and, at least with people covered under company schemes, they clearly have an incentive to offer more if you are at risk of becoming affected by a preventable illness.