-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Sun, Oct 22, 2000 at 11:08:48PM -0700, petro wrote:
Of course, in the libertarian ideal universe someone not completely indigent who had a genetic condition that made them high risk might still be unable to get any kind of catastropic medical insurance and might be wiped out of virtually all assets by a serious illness, even one completely unrelated in any way to his genetic predisposition.
Nonsense.
If Insurance companies were completely (or even greatly) deregulated, they could offer *seriously* ala-carte policies. They could easily write a policy that simply excluded--say breast cancer--from the policy of a woman who has a strong genetic predisposition to it, and *greatly reduce* the overall cost of her insurance for *all* other illnesses.
Leaving her free to either (a) find a high risk policy *just* for that, or spend the money on getting a radical mastectomy to eliminate the problem. Or any of a dozen other issues.
But they AREN'T deregulated, at least not yet. In any case, the debate was about what companies should do NOW, not about what they would/could/should do in the as-of-now imaginary world of total deregulation. I can't debate about the deregulation of insurance, because I'm not well-read on that subject.
That's what Nathan "I'm a thoughtless whiner"
Come on, now. Our disagreement doesn't automatically classify me as a "thoughtless whiner." I have thought about these issues; I just haven't reached the same conclusions you have.
and Sambo A. S. seem to miss, is that increased costs for a few mean *savings* for everyone else.
The costs for the few would rise much more than the savings for the many. Therefore, the number of people with genetic abnormalities who could not afford insurance would rise, while the number of genetically normal people who could afford insurance would not be altered drastically. - -- Nathan Saper (natedog@well.com) | http://www.well.com/user/natedog/ GnuPG (ElGamal/DSA): 0x9AD0F382 | PGP 2.x (RSA): 0x386C4B91 Standard PGP & PGP/MIME OK | AOL Instant Messenger: linuxfu -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.5.5 and Gnu Privacy Guard <http://www.gnupg.org/> iD8DBQE5898B2FWyBZrQ84IRAvTNAJ9+Dab+VNta322ce9EhpYrIND8K7wCgh7V7 62a56LaHJXOd3OTbvcb2qYI= =bTE+ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----