We make ’em every day.
Do we want this product knowing that if we buy it, we won’t be able to have that product.
This for that.
Is it worth it for me?
The same analysis occurs when purchasing many many things.
It certainly is reasonable to apply that same thinking to health insurance.
What’s surprising is that some people get upset when they are held responsible for that trade off:
Cary, N.C. — Don Corne has had severe intestinal problems for weeks, but he cannot afford to see a doctor about it.
Corne, a contractor in the maintenance and operations division of the Wake County Public School System, is among the more than 21 percent of adults in North Carolina who don’t have health insurance.
“Here I sit with something that needs to be dealt with or diagnosed, and if you don’t have this ticket called insurance or you don’t have a lot of money, then you can’t find out,” he said.
…
“Premiums I’ve gotten (quotes on) are anywhere from $300 to $400 a month, and that’s just so expensive. I can’t afford that,” he said of individual coverage.
Normally stories like this are done on people suffering from rare, dead and exotic diseases. The wrinkle being that their condition makes it emotionally impossible to criticize their poor decision making abilities. Or rather, for pointing out that the place they find themselves in is entirely of their own doing.
This is not the case for poor Mr. Corne.
He paid $49 to go to a clinic in Apex, where he was told he needed to see a gastroenterologist for a proper diagnosis. That visit would likely cost about $1,500, he was told.
Mr. Corne has simply made a value based decision. He decided that rather than “pissing away” $300-$400 a month, he would rather keep that and invest that money, or some portion of it, into an account that he could dip into should he ever need medical care.
The fact that he acted only on the “not pissing away” portion of his decision and not the “invest it in an account” should not be the fault of the system.
Had Mr. Corne saved just 5 months of the cheap version of health insurance, he could have self insured himself and been even after just FIVE months. FOUR if he based his savings on the $400 per month variety.
America does not have a “medical delivery” system problem. It has a “personal responsibility” problem.