-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Alan Olsen wrote:

Actually, the real "sucker rates" are the amounts small businesses pay for insurance.

The big businesses (who can buy in bulk) get a pretty reasonable deal for what they get. The smaller companies who cannot bargain the price down get screwed. (The rate my wife's employer was paying was close to double what my insurance costs and it covered ALOT less.)

You can improve the situation by purchasing high deductible policies. It is astonishing how quickly the rates fall when you are willing to pay the first few thousand yourself. Also, many small business owners seek out other small business owners and purchase their insurance collectively. I have heard this works fairly well, although it gives each participant less discretion, just like if they were employed by a large company.

I seriously doubt that most people could afford to self-insure at the going rate. (Not unless they have some serious income they want to get rid of.)

I'd guess there are a lot more people who can self insure than you think, but their net worth should be $200,000+. I'm not convinced that disaster medical care is all that expensive. Consider AIDS. I've heard that it costs about $30,000 to care for somebody with this disease. After ten years that's only $300,000. Yet, this is often put forth as a problem which causes insurance companies great trouble and causes rates to increase significantly. Does anybody know what the odds of hitting $300,000 are? I'm just guessing, but the odds are probably higher that you would die in some other way. Monty Cantsin Editor in Chief Smile Magazine http://www.neoism.org/squares/smile_index.html http://www.neoism.org/squares/cantsin_10.htm -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBNFjmAJaWtjSmRH/5AQEKlwf+M/LejU8uHDxrl4Q8K61CVSymGZjC1yPd QvTEOGHJZb8+g5MypHByJcyQTfUwf5oxFJJHsqM7RCVfYaNOnH/2V5TM0O7+B8Tq wT05ybZEbMY4XOcROccKjHj1spgpNinIQpYRvCQ6yf0t5RNo9ouhyx6dkK0VkUv2 FGk0/XeynCJO41OXvkVp031PO3d3G1alk/wO5SjB3KDzScsKHHdFQP4RP5Zv65WI ucWUO5aC9ArciVrI066s+D+B8lBJGZJoMAP0tkIEJnkWy7OlYshpp6n208ZdrAow YbCh7JDT/so0pX5hdsnC4PV+9WF0Cqu6rwHls8RyES7Cts+5/Bkebw== =awBK -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----