Changing health insurance after getting sick? - free market scenario

[farreri]

I always try to think of counter arguments to then counter, but I'm stuck on this scenario.

You have private health insurance, you get some dreaded life threatening costly disease that's going to take a long time to heal, or you'll have for the rest of your life, and is very important you don't skip any treatment for it which could really shorten your life if so. Your insurance company was doing a good job with great rates and service when you purchased your policy with them, but some time after getting diagnosed, they start doing a terrible job with bad service and jacked up rates, or worse, they go out of business because they were doing such a bad job. Now, you're stranded with a pre-existing condition that's life threatening and so costly to treat it will bankrupt you.

What then? Who's going to want to insure that person?

[angelatc]

Insurance was not intended to be a prepaid medical plan. There's your answer

[farreri]

Insurance was not intended to be a prepaid medical plan. There's your answer

I don't understand. Can you explain it more?

[thoughtomator]

Insurance was not intended to be a prepaid medical plan. There's your answer

I can explain this further.

What goes by the name of "health insurance" isn't insurance - as angelatc says, it is indeed a "prepaid medical plan". The name is a misnomer, the kind the sick & twisted political system of ours foists upon us to mislead.

What actual insurance would do is provide a cash payout in case you got sick, which we then could presume would be used for your medical care (or not, as you saw fit).

The issue of customer service is then a moot one, since the only thing an insurance company does that matters is pay the policy or not pay the policy.

For something as critical as one's health, re-insurance would also be wise - that would be insuring against the possibility your insurer couldn't pay out due to financial problems.


So in the case of your hypothetical scenario, the question also becomes moot, as there would be no way you could get an insurance policy against an event that has already come to pass, and the free market would quickly bankrupt anyone who tried to issue policies on those terms (since every policy would be a money-loser).

[farreri]

@thoughtomator, I'm not sure I understand how that would work. Can you run through a scenario of how you personally would get this kind of health plan. Maybe start with how you'd plan this for kids you would plan to have (or you didn't plan to have!).

[thoughtomator]

@thoughtomator, I'm not sure I understand how that would work. Can you run through a scenario of how you personally would get this kind of health plan. Maybe start with how you'd plan this for kids you would plan to have (or you didn't plan to have!).

In practice, you can't. Government made it illegal to have any form of health insurance that doesn't conform to their (industry-authored) standards.

In theory you would take out a health insurance policy before you got sick, and if you got sick the policy would be paid out, then you'd use the money to care for yourself (or if you were beyond hope of being healed, to bequeath something to posterity, or some other use of your choosing).

Normal routine health expenses would be paid out of pocket.

[brandon]

I don't understand. Can you explain it more?

Think of insurance differently. It could have fixed defined payouts. Get diagnosed with cancer? Insurance pays you a lump sum that you agreed upon when you bought the plan, and then the plan terminates. So you get 200k or whatever to spend as you please, and then it's over.

Obviously we're not going to redesign health care in this thread, but I am just presenting to you one idea of how to look at it from a different perspective.

[farreri]

So it would be more like taking out a life insurance policy?

[Lucille]

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...=1#post2307495

Also, Ron Paul:

https://the-free-foundation.org/tst8-26-2013.html

Long-term group insurance contracts could ensure that those with pre-existing conditions could obtain coverage. Under such a contract, individuals could pool resources to purchase a group policy that would cover any and all problems any member might develop over time. Businesses, churches, community organizations, and even fraternities and sororities could offer these types of contracts.

[farreri]

I think I get the gist of it. I'd like if someone can write some different scenarios out so it can really be clear since it's hard to envision something different that the system a society has grown up with.

[Zippyjuan]

By law under Obamacare, they can't deny you insurance for a pre-existing condition (the example of changing insurance companies in the middle of treatment). But that does not mean they can't charge you higher rates. Then you may face the problem of a delay in coverage between cancelling one insurance and the other taking over meaning you may lose coverage for a time meaning you have to pay for everything during that period.

[farreri]

By law under Obamacare, they can't deny you insurance for a pre-existing condition (the example of changing insurance companies in the middle of treatment). But that does not mean they can't charge you higher rates. Then you may face the problem of a delay in coverage between cancelling one insurance and the other taking over meaning you may lose coverage for a time meaning you have to pay for everything during that period.

I rather have socialized single-payer than obama-fascism-care. Not that obamacare can even sustain itself for very long economically.

[farreri]

How do you think getting health insurance/contracts (whatever they will be called) for kids would play out? I can see if you're planning to have kids, get policies before they are even conceived, but what about unplanned pregnancies that you don't realize until the woman starts getting morning sickness? Do you quickly go get a policy for the unborn child before getting a checkup which might reveal the unborn baby has a bad defect that's going to be very costly?

[presence]

I'm a believer that in a truly free market.... without patents, doctor's licenses, or prescriptions...

"patients" (or caregivers) with common pre existing conditions would form syndicates and those syndicates would collaborate to provide care for those within their respective groups; they'd cook, distribute, and administer their own treatments and medications; collectively owning the necessary equipment as a self financing syndicate; possibly with appeal to charitable interests; possibly with use of liens paid after death.

I often ask myself "what would I do" if my son's $1000/day meds were cut off... I assume everyone in his position would be in the same position... so it would seem instinctive that we band together and cook some $#@! up in our collective kitchen; collectively hire some industry lab rats with experience, collectively acquire the necessary second hand equipment... etc.

[farreri]

Going back to my original question, if health policies will be more like life insurance policies (correct me if I'm wrong), a life insurance police you pay monthly and the time of your death your beneficiaries get the payout. Will you pay similarly monthly payments for health policies?

[thoughtomator]

Going back to my original question, if health policies will be more like life insurance policies (correct me if I'm wrong), a life insurance police you pay monthly and the time of your death your beneficiaries get the payout. Will you pay similarly monthly payments for health policies?

I'd presume so. A free market would sort out what kinds of terms both customers and suppliers would find acceptable.

[farreri]

I'd presume so. A free market would sort out what kinds of terms both customers and suppliers would find acceptable.

So a worst case scenario, what if that company you're paying monthly rates to goes out of business and you have to get a policy with another company and I assume they want you to take a physical that found you have cancer and won't give you a policy, but if your previous company didn't go out of business, they would have covered you. See what I'm getting at?

[Chester Copperpot]

So a worst case scenario, what if that company you're paying monthly rates to goes out of business and you have to get a policy with another company and I assume they want you to take a physical that found you have cancer and won't give you a policy, but if your previous company didn't go out of business, they would have covered you. See what I'm getting at?

its called reinsurance and its SOP for insurance companies..

[thoughtomator]

its called reinsurance and its SOP for insurance companies..

this

insuring against an insurer unable to pay is called reinsurance.

[farreri]

its called reinsurance and its SOP for insurance companies..

Got it.

[farreri]

this

insuring against an insurer unable to pay is called reinsurance.

Got it.

What about my newborn scenario?

[farreri]

Has anyone, like the Cato institute, calculated the monthly health policy rates for the average household under free market system? Obviously the rich will buy more expensive policies, like buying more life insurance, but what rates the average family will be looking at.

[Chester Copperpot]

Has anyone, like the Cato institute, calculated the monthly health policy rates for the average household under free market system? Obviously the rich will buy more expensive policies, like buying more life insurance, but what rates the average family will be looking at.

when we have a free market system itll be much cheaper... we dont have that right now.

[thoughtomator]

Has anyone, like the Cato institute, calculated the monthly health policy rates for the average household under free market system? Obviously the rich will buy more expensive policies, like buying more life insurance, but what rates the average family will be looking at.

I doubt it's possible to calculate that number with any degree of realism. The whole system top to bottom is riddled with bureaucracy and rent-seeking.

I could offer a wild guess and say that overall health care in a free market would cost about 20% of what it does today, and the quality would be higher.

[Chester Copperpot]

I doubt it's possible to calculate that number with any degree of realism. The whole system top to bottom is riddled with bureaucracy and rent-seeking.

I could offer a wild guess and say that overall health care in a free market would cost about 20% of what it does today, and the quality would be higher.

that sounds pretty good... id imagine most people wouldnt even need insurance for any day to day medical needs.

[farreri]

I doubt it's possible to calculate that number with any degree of realism. The whole system top to bottom is riddled with bureaucracy and rent-seeking.

I could offer a wild guess and say that overall health care in a free market would cost about 20% of what it does today, and the quality would be higher.

I was hoping there was since if people in other parties see how much cheaper it could be, it would really catch their attention. Personally, I don't think the Libertarian Party has done a good job describing how free market health care would work. It took me a lot of digging to find explanations that made sense to me--I even had to start this thread to find out more answers--and the average voter won't take anywhere near that time I have to find these health care answers.

Looking at some current rates:

Monthly Life insurance: $30 (25 yr old non-smoker)
Monthly Health insurance: $235 (avg USA)

That would get people's attention if free market rates where close to life insurance rates which I assume would be.

[thoughtomator]

I was hoping there was since if people in other parties see how much cheaper it could be, it would really catch their attention. Personally, I don't think the Libertarian Party has done a good job describing how free market health care would work. It took me a lot of digging to find explanations that made sense to me--I even had to start this thread to find out more answers--and the average voter won't take anywhere near that time I have to find these health care answers.

Looking at some current rates:

Monthly Life insurance: $30 (25 yr old non-smoker)
Monthly Health insurance: $235 (avg USA)

That would get people's attention if free market rates where close to life insurance rates which I assume would be.

That's the curse of the New Libertarian Movement. People are just too darn good to debase themselves by marketing liberty ideas to the masses and all the simplification that entails.

[farreri]

Looking at some current rates:

Monthly Life insurance: $30 (25 yr old non-smoker)
Monthly Health insurance: $235 (avg USA)

That would get people's attention if free market rates where close to life insurance rates which I assume would be.

I just found my answer!

Peter Schiff: "The monthly premium on the major medical policy my father sold in the 1960s was only $2 per month, not $5.
Adjusted for inflation, that would be about $20 per month in today's dollars."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfwny2TTyWM

[thoughtomator]

I just found my answer!

Peter Schiff: "The monthly premium on the major medical policy my father sold in the 1960s was only $2 per month, not $5.
Adjusted for inflation, that would be about $20 per month in today's dollars."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfwny2TTyWM

That's not the whole of the answer, I'm afraid.

Due to the advance of technology, we can do things today that were never dreamed of in the 1960s, but they can be rather expensive. We could be talking 5 times the 1960s cost.

Of course, even then, we're talking about $100/month policies, not $1500/month plus policies with $6000 deductibles and a government gun to your head forcing you to buy one.

[farreri]

That's not the whole of the answer, I'm afraid.

Due to the advance of technology, we can do things today that were never dreamed of in the 1960s, but they can be rather expensive. We could be talking 5 times the 1960s cost.

Of course, even then, we're talking about $100/month policies, not $1500/month plus policies with $6000 deductibles and a government gun to your head forcing you to buy one.

Good point.