Who Needs Health Insurance? - Jonathan Pryor's web log

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Who Needs Health Insurance?

Illness and medical bills cause half of all bankruptcies according to the Harvard Medical School. More disturbing is the out-of-pocket medical costs: $13,460 for those with private insurance, and $10,893 for those without.

In other words, for this limited sample, you will owe more money by having medical insurance than you would without it. Though this doesn't say anything about the quality of life for those with vs. those without insurance -- those with insurance may have had better care, for example.

It also points out that medical insurance is primarily useful for "minor" health issues; anything major, and more importantly, major enough to keep you away from work long enough to cause loss of the job, and you might as well not have any insurance, as it won't help.

From the article:

Unless you're Bill Gates, you're just one serious illness away from bankruptcy. Most of the medically bankrupt were average Americans who happened to get sick. Health insurance offered little protection. Families with coverage faced unaffordable co-payments, deductibles and bills for uncovered items like physical therapy, psychiatric care and prescription drugs. And even the best job-based health insurance often vanished when prolonged illness caused job loss - precisely when families needed it most. Too often, private health insurance is an umbrella that melts in the rain.

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