Tim May wrote:
At 9:20 PM -0500 10/18/00, Neil Johnson wrote:
But the Bob has no control of his risk (genetics), or at least not yet :). The insurance company does.
The insurance company does NOT have any control over Bob's risks! Whatever gave you that idea?
At most, an insurance company would have some information Bob didn't have. Bob could reasonably demand a copy of the results of his DNA test. If the insurance company refused, he could shop elsewhere. Or self-insure, as many of us choose to do.
I am unable to find any gentler way to say this: a lot of you (Neil, Yardena, Nathan, Robert, etc.) are woefully ignorant of economics, markets, and the nature of a free society.
If they're Americans, they've probably been socialistized by the public school system. In addition to the inculcation of a belief system the public schools seem to actively discourage critical thought and the use of, gasp, shudder, numerical data. (I'm speaking in broad terms, of course; there are many isolated exceptions.) Not that I don't contemn the ignorant. An adult must take responsibility for his education, no matter how badly mangled it was during his childhood.
In this insurance debate, several of you seem to think that Bob has some "right" to insurance...at the price _he_ or some committee thinks is "fair."
You've probably noticed, Tim, that most of those who claim a right to affordable insurance are those who expect to _need_ a lot of insurance benefits. I'm not sure that those people realize it themselves, even when it's pointed out to them. (That may simply reflect on my skill at oratory, but I should think that a huge collection of data points speaks for itself.) I concluded long ago that medical insurance is a bad idea for society. It encourages irresponsible behavior to the extent that prices are spread to other people. And of course attempting to adjust premiums based on expectation of irresponsible behavior in well on its way to being labeled a crime against humanity.
Please read up on some basic economics--preferably not Marxist economics.
Or Hillaryomics. Oh, wait, you already excluded Marxist economics. -- Steve Furlong, Computer Condottiere Have GNU, will travel 518-374-4720 sfurlong@acmenet.net