scott wrote:
>> 1 - If it's voluntary, only the sick people sign up for it.
> 
> I've not seen that anywhere, healthy people always sign up for health 
> insurance too.

If that were the case, we'd not have large percentages of people uninsured. 
But it's often the case that young healthy people will buy (say) only 
catastrophic health insurance (covering costs >$5000 perhaps), while someone 
who is already chronically ill will get lots of detailed insurance covering 
medicine, regular doctor visits, etc. Plus people with good teeth and eyes 
don't buy dental or vision insurance, and people who need to change glasses 
every year buy vision insurance.

> If the insurance company judges them as a low risk they 
> get the same cover cheaper than if they are judged as high risk.

It depends on the insurance, of course.

>> The insurance nature suffers therefrom, especially if those who didn't 
>> pay for it get treated anyway, which they do.
> 
> OK, if you get treated anyway without insurance then why do even the 
> unhealthy people bother paying for insurance?  Who currently pays for 
> the uninsured people to get treated?

The hospitals. That's why so many hospitals are closing their emergency rooms.

>> 2 - Your health is worth virtually anything you own.
> No it's not.

In some sense. I guess I should have said "your life is worth virtually 
anything you own."

>> The "utility value" of not dying outweighs almost everything else for 
>> most people.
> 
> Sure, but "health care" covers a lot more than simple "you will die if 
> you don't pay" situations, most people don't face those too often.

Right.

> So, in America then, if you get a chronic condition do your insurance 
> premiums sky rocket? 

The situations I'm aware of, the chronic condition happened after the person 
had already been getting insurance from the employer. The victims couldn't 
change jobs (because then it would become a "pre-existing condition", and 
the employer's premiums obviously went up some, but that got spread out 
amongst all the employees, which is the point of insurance.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
    back to version 1.0."
   "We've done that already. We call it 2.0."

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