If you are reasonably healthy, and as the system now exists, the incentive for uninsured people is to pay the fine on your taxes each year for not having insurance. Even with the discounts and tax credits that the government provides under Obamacare, the cost under the "Affordable" Care Act is outrageous and, for many, prohibitive. The cost of the fine is much lower than the cost of the insurance.
Further, in the case of a major claim, you still pay a high percentage of the cost. With the obscene rates medical providers charge, a hospital stay for treatment can quickly grow to hundreds of thousands of dollars. A Twenty percent co-pay of that can bankrupt many people. Since bankruptcy is a real risk under Obamacare, many are opting to go without insurance figuring that they are healthy enough now to get away with it and in the event of a major medical event, they can still get treated and will be bankrupted just the same.
Before Obamacare, Diane and I paid a pretty penny for some really good health insurance that covered us anywhere on the road, covered us for just about any health issue that might arise, and provided a wallet card that got us into just about any hospital or clinic anywhere in the country. We were covered for major medical in a way that an extended hospital stay would not bankrupt us because the co-pay and deductible stopped at a reasonable amount. We paid on the bottom end and the insurance company took care of the rest if a major claim was made.
After Obamacare, the cost of that policy skyrocketed to the point where the premiums were enough to make payments on a nice, Atlantic beachfront home in Florida. And there was no assurance that the costs would not continue to rise. This without us making a major claim in over 10 years.
What money was paid for our claimes came out of our Health Savings Account which was funded by money we put in. In 10 years, the insurance company did not pay out a dime for us that came out of its own pocket. Then along came Obamacare and it no longer mattered that we were low-risk, healthy, reliable-premium-paying people. Our costs skyrocketed.
The policy we have now is still high cost (higher than what we paid before) but at least within our means to pay. It does not provide nationwide coverage as well as our previous policy did. The difference is so great, in fact, that we think twice now before planning a trip to visit relatives back home in Minnesota. If we got sick or injured while there, we would be in deep financial trouble. So too with business travel. Once, we would not have thought twice before booking a room to attend a conference in a distant state. Now we do.
We know many people in the workforce who find "Affordable" Health Care insurance to be unaffordable. We know others who have done the math described above and opted to pay the fine.
Obama likes to brag about how many millions of new people are now covered. He neglects to cite the cost others pay to make that happen. And he especially neglects to cite the fact that in the cases of major claims, people are not covered at all. They still end up bankrupt. The medical providers and insurance companies get billions while citizens get treatment and a one-way trip to the poorhouse.
That is not insurance. It is a brilliantly designed mechanism that shovels billions of dollars to insurance companies and medical providers and, by bankrupting citizens, creates millions more who become dependent on the politicians for support.
Back to an expediter's unique health insurance needs, if there is a good solution out there, I do not know what it is.