On Sun, Aug 16, 2009 at 4:42 PM, Trent Shipley<tship...@deru.com> wrote:
> So insurance could charge someone with type II diabetes more, but not > someone with type I diabetes. You could charge more to people who, > smoke, are over weight, who don't exercise, or who practice un-safe sex. > > You couldn't charge more because of sex, age, or a prior cancer--except > to the extent it was caused by a lifestyle choice. Insurance is a way of pooling risk, but in virtually all types of insurance, the premiums charged are proportional to the estimated level of risk for each participant. If that is not the case, then people who are low risk will avoid insurance pools that contain higher risk people, since their premiums will be lower that way. Then you end up with lower risk pools with lower premiums and higher risk pools with higher premiums. Which is what you would have had anyway, if the premiums were not artificially restricted. If the government is going to interfere in the insurance market, it seems to me that it would be simpler just to directly subsidize those who cannot afford to pay health insurance premiums, and leave the insurance market to function rationally. _______________________________________________ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
