Medical Insurance-Expensive, Inadequate, and Unavailable-a Total Fraud

People unschooled in logic don't realize that there are a number of different logics. Each is effective when applied to appropriate situations, and completely ineffective when applied elsewhere. In particular, some issues can only be understood in terms of the logic of analogy. One of these is medical insurance.

Consider homeowners insurance. Usually it covers replacement value, and lenders often require this level of coverage to protect the collateral that backs their loans. Insurance that doesn't cover replacement value really isn't insurance, since it ensures nothing. The same is true of comprehensive insurance on automobiles. No sensible person would purchase insurance that covered only a portion of the replacement of a home or automobile, because it would be useless. If one had only eighty percent coverage on a two-hundred thousand dollar home that was destroyed by fire or tornado or some other cataclysm, the insurance wouldn't pay enough to replace the home; the owner would be short forty thousand dollars, far more than most people could come up with. Although such insurance may be sold, only the extremely wealthy or the foolish would buy it. Yet that's what Americans are stuck with with Medical insurance. It rarely, perhaps never, pays the total cost.

Many procedures are covered to only some percentage of the cost. Some at fifty percent, others at eighty percent. So when a person needs a major medical procedure, even after paying monthly premiums for years to an insurance company, he is still often stuck with a bill for thousands of dollars after his insurance has paid its share. This isn't insurance; it doesn't eliminate a person's financial risk as other insurance does. In fact, there is good reason to believe that the entire industry is a criminal enterprise engaged in a gigantic fraud on the American public.

Automobile insurance, because of its many different kinds of coverage complicates the comparison, but comprehensive coverage, the part that covers the vehicles replacement is perhaps the cheapest coverage involved, around three percent of the price of the vehicle according to my calculations, but medical insurance premiums are considerably higher than three percent of the cost of most medical procedures and the coverage is for considerably less that full.

Why is it any wonder that so many Americans lack coverage? Unless the coverage is part of the benefits package of an employer, the insurance is far too costly for the coverage provided. It's a scam. (4/26/2006)

2006, John Kozy

Print article> Send to friend Author feedback