Ruminations

I honestly don't think "moral hazard" figures much when it comes to getting health care through insurance (though it probably does for other types of insurance). Who really wants (or has the time) to hang out at the doctor's? Who really wants to be probed or irradiated or operated on perhaps unnecessarily and risk dying before their time? The pro-laissez-faire capitalist people use "moral hazard" as an excuse to try to get everyone to pay more out of pocket for their own health care (whereby the insurance companies profit).

Really the only people who have the time to hang out at the doctor's and who can afford to pay out of pocket for their health care are the idle, extremely wealthy. Especially the way health care and drugs are priced in the U.S. And the prices that only the vastly wealthy can afford are the standard for everyone now. Everything is priced at the very top of the market; the less wealthy are forced to have insurance to pay for it, since otherwise they could never afford it.

This is crazy. (It didn't use to be this way.)

See Andy Rooney from Sunday's "60 Minutes" here.