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Old 11-18-2007, 07:08 PM   #65
mini
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Olympia, WA
Posts: 9,676
You are very lucky! (and, in fact, in our state high-risk insurance pool, one of about 7 in the nation, I can in fact acquire insurance, but the pay increase I'd need to have would have to be very substantial.)

The principle of cost-sharing, rather than risk-sharing, is one that every other western democracy except the U.S. has adopted. We have cost-sharing in Social Security. Of course, for the past 70 years, African-American males with a life expectancy below age 65, have been supporting nice white woman who die at 82. (The so-called crisis in Social Security is a direct result of the beginnings of mitigation of the racial subsidy.) Why should I pay Social Security (and Medicare!) for all those old ladies when I don't expect to live that long?

Risk sharing (and with it, the 19-33% rake off to the private insurance companies) would be considered downright silly anywhere else but in the U.S. Deadly too. Deadly to people with insurance as well as to people without it, as it provides incentives to skimp on quality (and they do).
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