to be fair there is a lot to complain about the existence of insurance, too
insurance is usually necessary when essential services like Healthcare are not fully nationalized/subsidized.
only exception I can think of is maybe some kind of fire or other destruction insurance, but even so it should be government provided.
There may be more exceptions i am not immediately thinking of, but basically, insurance how it exists right now is extremely fucking predatory and one of the worst things about capitalism - especially health insurance.
Health insurance is an exception amongst insurances.
The primary form of insurance is paying a third party to take on a risk on your behalf.
For example, if my business owns a truck, but I don’t want to take the risk that it might be stolen or be involved in an accident, I can pay someone else to take that risk. There’s nothing wrong with that and it’s a normal part of business.
However, there’s all sorts of weird things called insurance that are really something else. Life insurance is my favourite awful example. Some policies are ok, like I have $x left to pay on my mortgage, so I can get a life insurance policy for a similar amount and at least if I die my family will have the house paid off. Others are a weird kind of savings plan, where you pay a lot more but get a big pay out once you reach a certain age.
Health insurance in the US is obviously tangled up with politics and profiteering and is more like a complicated extortion plan than insurance.
As a general guide, any insurance you intend to make a claim on is usually problematic.
i mean, that all makes a lot of sense, and you’re not wrong, I just believe insurance ought to be a public service.
If the purpose of insurance is to spread risk so that people can still live their lives when unforeseen events happen, that benefits a country, that is a risk the government should be shouldering.
Anyway, I have found myself on a tangent. I guess fundamentally I don’t disagree with the concept of insurance, my biggest complaints are regarding the execution of it within capitalism, but you already basically said what I wanted to about health insurance in particular.
to be fair there is a lot to complain about the existence of insurance, too
insurance is usually necessary when essential services like Healthcare are not fully nationalized/subsidized.
only exception I can think of is maybe some kind of fire or other destruction insurance, but even so it should be government provided.
There may be more exceptions i am not immediately thinking of, but basically, insurance how it exists right now is extremely fucking predatory and one of the worst things about capitalism - especially health insurance.
Health insurance is an exception amongst insurances.
The primary form of insurance is paying a third party to take on a risk on your behalf.
For example, if my business owns a truck, but I don’t want to take the risk that it might be stolen or be involved in an accident, I can pay someone else to take that risk. There’s nothing wrong with that and it’s a normal part of business.
However, there’s all sorts of weird things called insurance that are really something else. Life insurance is my favourite awful example. Some policies are ok, like I have $x left to pay on my mortgage, so I can get a life insurance policy for a similar amount and at least if I die my family will have the house paid off. Others are a weird kind of savings plan, where you pay a lot more but get a big pay out once you reach a certain age.
Health insurance in the US is obviously tangled up with politics and profiteering and is more like a complicated extortion plan than insurance.
As a general guide, any insurance you intend to make a claim on is usually problematic.
i mean, that all makes a lot of sense, and you’re not wrong, I just believe insurance ought to be a public service.
If the purpose of insurance is to spread risk so that people can still live their lives when unforeseen events happen, that benefits a country, that is a risk the government should be shouldering.
Anyway, I have found myself on a tangent. I guess fundamentally I don’t disagree with the concept of insurance, my biggest complaints are regarding the execution of it within capitalism, but you already basically said what I wanted to about health insurance in particular.