Thursday, January 25, 2007

Health Insurance

I'm glad I have it. It's very good where I work. I consider myself lucky.

I think though, on the whole, that private insurance companies ultimately cannot afford to provide universal health care.

Each insurance company has an enormous bureaucracy and a CEO making an obscene salary. Unless these companies go out of their way to exclude people who really need health care, they don't make a profit. They've each got to pay for their bureaucracy and their CEO, and then have money left over to pay dividends to shareholders. And they're all in competition to pay the fattest dividends.

Wouldn't it be better to have a system in which profit wasn't a motive when it comes to your health?

My father was in the insurance business. I had a personal, guided tour of Lloyd's of London way back when. (I was impressed. I saw that bell they ring when a big ship goes down.) I think insurance is brilliant. But I just don't think private insurance is able to handle the demands of a nation's health care. It's too expensive to be profitable.

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