Your “Why is this so messed up?” Guide to Insurance
Your reference to all the "WHYs?!" of insurance
Choose-your-own adventure! Explore your questions now and come back as a reference in the future.
If this is simply about navigating your own insurance plan-
“What on earth are all these copays??” Health Insurance Pricing: Battling the snake heads of Hydra Explaining the method in the make-you-madness.
“What’s this Medicare thing? ” Medicare vs. Medicaid, Medicare Advantage, and Medicare Drug Plans.
What insurance should (really) be –
What is the most basic form insurance can take? What is the core value insurance should provide? Does it really end up doing this?
Literary Minute: Health Insurance in Black Beauty Some horse sense on how insurance naturally arises, using an easily-overlooked detail from children’s literature.
Insurance: Why does it (really) exist? A common answer is, “because health care costs a lot!” but this is not correct!
What does insurance buy you? A real life experiment to see what we gain from insurance. Spoiler alert, the biggest help is not better health outcomes.
Bonus: what insurance should (really) be for drug coverage. Disentangling Drug Prices: Is insurance friend or foe? What if you could shop for them on Amazon?
Why insurance markets will always be different from other markets-
The inherent difficulties insurers face when offering up their product, and how profit-making functions slightly differently.
Insurance: Insurer’s perspective- Why insurance markets are naturally inclined to collapse. (Bonus: it’s a Halloween theme!)
How do you make profit in insurance, anyway? – The basics of the insurer’s profit equation and how this naturally creates more monopolies.
Why U.S. insurance struggles with preventive care-
Why is insurance focused heavily on treating versus preventing illness?
Do Insurers profit from keeping people healthy? How markets and the federal government collide to decrease incentives for prevention.
Insurance: Incentives The U.S.’s big picture problem in a mixed public and private system.
Tips to treat sclerosis of your arteries, ahem, healthcare system – Why our system was founded on billable interventions, rather than cheaper prevention, and how insurance is like Costco.
Why we feel powerless in the U.S. as enrollees-
Why there is so little competition in your local insurance market, despite many firms nationwide. How the structure of employer-sponsored insurance could be improved to bring the employee back into power.
Why do I feel so powerless as a patient? How the U.S.’s employer sponsored insurance structure contrasts with Germany and Switzerland.
Insurance: Why is there so little competition? (with a bonus Wicked theme!)
How other countries deal with these problems-
Four international examples of tackling a major problem in an innovative way.
Bonus 1: a bird-eye view of why the U.S.’s costs are double those of Europe.
Bonus 2: universal healthcare at the state level? Big Dreams and Big Questions in Utah Pros and cons, and how to provide for the uninsured.