Ok, so what is it you think can be changed? Remove copays and make everything out-of-pocket until some threshold is met?
A google search suggests somewhere north of 75% of all healthcare spending is for chronic care. Surely most of that falls in the "catastrophic" category. How much impact is your change to catastrophic-only insurance goi…
Ok, so what is it you think can be changed? Remove copays and make everything out-of-pocket until some threshold is met?
A google search suggests somewhere north of 75% of all healthcare spending is for chronic care. Surely most of that falls in the "catastrophic" category. How much impact is your change to catastrophic-only insurance going to have?
As for the other 25%, What about preventative care? Surely vaccines and some other things save money for insurance companies and society too. Are you going to tell insurance companies not to cover those things? They often go so far as giving rewards for various types of preventative care. Should that not happen? On top of that, is common wisdom wrong that treating conditions early is cheaper? If so, should we ignore that by creating more incentive to wait?
I sympathize with your goals but there are A LOT of complications I don't have answers for and I'm doubtful you, Sowell, or anyone else has answers that makes catastrophic-only insurance an option that makes even minimal difference no matter how much we wish it were different.
My goal here was simply to throw a few things out that I thought an "honest ecomomist" would add.
I am not an expert and have no "solution". I was shocked at your 75% figure, but then I wondered if it was including in "healthcare spending" nursing homes and assisted living and other stuff that is largely custodial (carceral?).
As medical insurance covers more and more, people have come to believe that it really is "health insurance" and should cover whatever affects health. It comes as a shock to many people that until fairly recently, it was considered part of a person's own responsibility to get and pay for vaccinations and various other things that are now called "preventive care". The same way it was a person's own responsibility to pay for food, though starving is very unhealthy.
Be honest. You didn't believe that claim from the start. I, on the other hand, am becoming increasingly doubtful. You'd have to set pretty severe limits on what's covered.
I neither believe nor disbelieve that catastrophic-only could work. Through this conversation I see more reasons to be doubtful. Doesn't mean it couldn't be somehow made to work. A lower bar is working a bit better than what we have today.
And maybe Sowell has a very detailed plan for how to implement his vision for healthcare finance but he what he stated in the book had huge holes and I doubt he has figured out how to full them.
Ok, so what is it you think can be changed? Remove copays and make everything out-of-pocket until some threshold is met?
A google search suggests somewhere north of 75% of all healthcare spending is for chronic care. Surely most of that falls in the "catastrophic" category. How much impact is your change to catastrophic-only insurance going to have?
As for the other 25%, What about preventative care? Surely vaccines and some other things save money for insurance companies and society too. Are you going to tell insurance companies not to cover those things? They often go so far as giving rewards for various types of preventative care. Should that not happen? On top of that, is common wisdom wrong that treating conditions early is cheaper? If so, should we ignore that by creating more incentive to wait?
I sympathize with your goals but there are A LOT of complications I don't have answers for and I'm doubtful you, Sowell, or anyone else has answers that makes catastrophic-only insurance an option that makes even minimal difference no matter how much we wish it were different.
My goal here was simply to throw a few things out that I thought an "honest ecomomist" would add.
I am not an expert and have no "solution". I was shocked at your 75% figure, but then I wondered if it was including in "healthcare spending" nursing homes and assisted living and other stuff that is largely custodial (carceral?).
As medical insurance covers more and more, people have come to believe that it really is "health insurance" and should cover whatever affects health. It comes as a shock to many people that until fairly recently, it was considered part of a person's own responsibility to get and pay for vaccinations and various other things that are now called "preventive care". The same way it was a person's own responsibility to pay for food, though starving is very unhealthy.
"insurance that only pays for catastrophes would take care of many of those problems"
This is what you started with. As we've conversed I've become increasingly doubtful of the claim.
Be honest. You didn't believe that claim from the start. I, on the other hand, am becoming increasingly doubtful. You'd have to set pretty severe limits on what's covered.
I neither believe nor disbelieve that catastrophic-only could work. Through this conversation I see more reasons to be doubtful. Doesn't mean it couldn't be somehow made to work. A lower bar is working a bit better than what we have today.
And maybe Sowell has a very detailed plan for how to implement his vision for healthcare finance but he what he stated in the book had huge holes and I doubt he has figured out how to full them.