. . . a lot of politicians seem to think if everyone buys insurance, the problem will be solved, but that doesn't get to the heart of the issue: That private insurance is an adversarial system designed to limit the amount of care you get and maximize the amount of money that can be extracted from its customers. (Source)
As someone somewhere pointed out, it's wrong to frame this as health insurance reform; it should be thought of as healthcare financing reform. I buy homeowner's insurance because there's a risk my house might burn down, and I need to hedge against the catastrophic financial loss that would cause.
But while there's a good chance my house will never burn down, there's no such chance that I or my family will not need healthcare. The idea that getting ill is on the same level as having one's house burn down or getting into a car accident is confounding. There's no might or might not when it comes to healthcare.
The question is what's the best model for paying for it, and the insurance market model has proved itself to be egregiously inadequate. Inadequate, at least, for the people in need of healthcare, not for those who currently make a living by insuring it.
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