An opinion piece in today’s Wall Street Journal alleges that health insurance companies are like a mafia protection racket. It’s quite an accusation - one that’s nearly guaranteed to get a lot of discussion started.
In a perfect world, I’d like to see most people paying for routine health expenses out-of-pocket from a health savings account, while keeping a catastrophic high-deductible insurance policy to cover accidents and major health crises. Consumers do have this option, but in the U.S., where most people get their health insurance through their employers, the traditional system isn’t going anywhere soon. Anything that gets people talking about possible solutions to our health care problems, however, is a good thing.
(The article comes via the WSJ Health Blog, which is one of my favorite reads on the Web. Not only are the posts themselves gold, but the comments sections bring in remarkably insightful comments from very intelligent people. It’s truly the blog that keeps on giving.)
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