An effort from Simon Johnson and James Kwak explaining why even the insured shouldn't like the current health insurance system. They start off by observing that obtaining health care on the individual market is very difficult -- 73 percent of people who tried to buy individual coverage in the last three years couldn't obtain a plan. And insuring your health isn't like insuring a house, where costs of damage can be reasonably foreseen and risks taken into account. The solution, then, is employer-based health care, which provides a large risk pool. Except that if you lose your job, you don't have health insurance. And even more worrisome:"Employers are dropping their health plans; the percentage of people covered through an employer has dropped from 64 percent in 2000 to 59 percent in 2007, and that decline is likely to accelerate. Why? Because, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey, the average annual premium for family coverage has already increased from $5,791 in 1999 to $12,680 in 2008 -- a 9 percent annual increase."And, of course, 29 percent of people have less insurance than they should. These facts should be a reminder of why people thought health care reform was a good idea in the first place, not even to mention, the overarching moral problem of America's huge uninsured population and the accelerating costs to our public funds. As people panic about things that aren't in the plan, it's important to refocus on these fundamental issues and what can be done about them.
[T]he basic minimum is that it allows all people to buy health insurance regardless of medical history, and it provides subsidies to help poor and middle-income families buy health insurance. That means that if you get sick and lose your job, you will still be able to get health care. That is something that everyone should be in favor of -- because everyone can get sick and lose his or her job.
-- Tim Fernholz
