Live Science paints a gloomy picture of health insurance.
Employer provided health insurance premiums have gone up at double the rate of inflation.
What does this portend? Simply that employers or employees must bear the cost. If employers bear the cost, elimination of group insurance plans is more likely to occur. If employees bear the cost, then they have less money for other fixed expenses.
Next question: Who are the most likely to go without insurance? The poor. Who are the most likely to have poor health habits leading to shortened life expectancy? The poor.
The poor are placed in an untenable position when it comes to their health. They have no alternative to externalize their health costs to society at large. That leaves the rest of us to pick up the tab.
I suppose you can see where this is going.
We need to seriously consider some type of health system where costs are spread evenly throughout society, so that costs can be brought under control.
Am I advocating socialized medicine? No. I am advocating some form of socialized insurance, which is NOT the same as socialized medicine.
Things will need to change and soon because we cannot afford to keep paying the tab for a system that is punitive towards poverty and the poor.
Health care costs must
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