Tim* has an interesting response to my health care post below. What he puts out is something of a extended meditation on the nature of health insurance, and how it differs from other forms of insurance. Oddly enough, his post, to me, seemed like an excellent argument for nationalizing health insurance in the country, but I assume that wasn't his intent. In any case, it is worth keeping in mind that health insurance does subsidize a number of known conditions and is not, in that way, a simple insurance market. It does redistribute some wealth from the potentially healthy to those known to be sick, but that's necessary.
Nevertheless, it also redistributes from the healthy to the, for lack of a better term, formerly healthy. In addition, it demands huge premiums from the already-ill, often pricing them out of the market, so it's not really a free ride no matter where you're entering. Indeed, running through that structure shows why the incentives are off for providing health insurance, and why it shouldn't be entrusted to the private sector. But then, I believe that health care should be a guarantee, costs for illnesses that are the result of bad luck should be spread throughout society rather than simply ruining the unlucky individuals, and a certain amount of redistribution is just fine. Which is to say that I am, as previously thought, a liberal. Rock on.
* Whose family seems to shatter, break, and otherwise mess up a staggering number of limbs. Did they live in a tree or something?
