Comments on: Insulation vs. Insurance

By: Health care's simple economics

Health care's simple economics — Sat, 02 May 2009 01:02:22 +0000

[...] Z, If adverse selection were such an issue, then there wouldn’t be an insurance market. Adverse selection is overcome by the fact that insurance providers can screen applicants: blood pressure, blood testing, lifestyle questionnaires, etc., which allow the insurance providers to determine how much people are going to cost them over the course of a policy so that they can price the policy. For more, you can look here: Marginal Revolution: Adverse selection is NOT the problem In terms of saving, the average person will pay $100K in medical expenses later in life. Why can’t people save that much over the course of a lifetime? For anything beyond that, then you can get insurance to prevent catastrophic financial losses. For more, you can look here: Cato Unbound Blog Archive Insulation vs. Insurance [...]

By: RMN: Liberty is best prescription for health care | Independence Institute: Patient Power

Sat, 27 Dec 2008 07:17:45 +0000

[...] has been disastrous. The tax exemption for employer-provided insurance has turned insurance into prepaid health care, so people consume medical care like business travelers on the company expense [...]

By: The Glittering Eye » Blog Archive » There He Goes Again: John Stossel on Health Care

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 16:25:46 +0000

[...] was my gripe, too, with Arnold Kling’s article on healthcare from earlier this year. Insulation leads people to over-consume health care services. Americans [...]

By: Sunday Suggestions | The Doctor Is In

Sunday Suggestions | The Doctor Is In — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 14:51:15 +0000

[...] Arnold Kling challenges the assumptions. He seems taken in by the lower-prices-by-removing-licensing-restrictions argument (which would work only in a free market, which we don’t have), but he has some thought-provoking ideas: The Universal Distraction (HT: Maggies Farm) See also his excellent article on Insulation vs. Insurance — although if he had bladder cancer (a common disease), ignoring his microscopic hematuria would have been a very bad idea. [...]

By: Houston’s Overloaded ERs « Sit, Ubu, Sit! Good dog!

Houston’s Overloaded ERs « Sit, Ubu, Sit! Good dog! — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 04:32:16 +0000

[...] I agree with the post’s author that there isn’t an easy solution. This story highlights the intersection of two issues that are roiling the national political waters and doubtless will be key points in the presidential race, healthcare and illegal immigration. I think the answer to the healthcare problem has to include reform that divorces the idea of health insurance from employment and also changes the perception that people have of what health insurance should cover (see this article comparing insurance and “insulation”). But I don’t know if our society, with so many who look to the government to be the solution for every problem, is going to be willing to go through the difficult transition such a change would require. The idea of universal healthcare, guaranteed by the government, is a much easier sell politically, even though it is driving most of the countries that currently have it to financial ruin. And perhaps the more pressing problem in Houston, which is a city that thrives on immigration, is the illegal immigrant problem. Doubtless they have some economic benefit to society with the cheap labor they provide, but the drain on education, social services and law enforcement are all costs that are borne by the rest of us. The U.S. should have a strong policy of encouraging immigration, but it should be on terms that the nation can control and enforce, which is another way of saying that before any reforms can be implemented on the system that allows people to come here, we need to be able to stop people from coming illegally and discourage the ones already here illegally from staying. [...]

By: wakalix » Government-run auto repair? Yes!

wakalix » Government-run auto repair? Yes! — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 21:23:36 +0000

[...] Consider health care, Godfather. The National Center for Policy Analysis reports that patients pay only 14 percent of costs out-of-pocket. Paraphrasing economist Arnold Kling, this is cost-insulation, not insurance. Between 1992 and 2005, medical-service prices increased by 77 percent while the Consumer Price Index rose only 39 percent. The cost of cosmetic surgery, an uninsured medical procedure, increased only 22 percent despite booming demand. And yet, the RAND Health Insurance Experiment concluded that low deductibles increases consumers` spending, but not their health. [...]

By: big_question » Blog Archive » Guestposter D.J. Tice: Bush’s new health care idea highlights some Big health-care Questions

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 06:15:19 +0000

[...] Here, by the way, is a provocative free market perspective on the problems with American health care - the problem of confusing “insulation” with “insurance” — by Cato Institute scholar Arnold Kling. [...]

By: In the Agora

In the Agora — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 14:15:46 +0000

Consumer-Driven Health Care III

I was once very enthusiastic about the potential of market forces to control the costs of health care in the US, even going so far as to put my money where my mouth is and open an HSA. My enthusiasm…

By: Club for Growth

Club for Growth — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 14:52:21 +0000

Monday’s Daily News

THE DAILY NEWS Bush is Still Getting Social Security Wrong - Mike Pence, WSJ GOP Fears Bush Will Triangulate - Susan Crabtree, The Hill Harry Reid’s Embarrassing Reform Proposal - Robert Novak, Human Events Open-Field Presidential Politics in 2008 - M…

By: How sick am I, exactly? « ZenPolitics

How sick am I, exactly? « ZenPolitics — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:50:37 +0000

[...] How sick am I, exactly? Posted in Politics, Economics by hktelemacher on the January 10th, 2007 First and most importantly, is anyone but me having trouble with Cato Unbound’s trackback system? My last post should have connected via trackback to the Lead Essay, but I got nothing. It’s happened before, and I’ve rectified it in the past by reposting–the trackback feature has in the past worked fine the second time, but it didn’t this time. [...]

By: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of ...

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of ... — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 18:59:14 +0000

The Problem With the Problem With Insurance

Predictably, Cato Unbound has another great lead essay this month - Arnold Kling’s Insulation vs. Insurance which talks about the state of the health industry and why the current model of all-encompassing health care is unsustainable.

Also predict…

By: You mean I should have read the end first? « ZenPolitics

You mean I should have read the end first? « ZenPolitics — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 21:34:42 +0000

[...] This month’s Lead Essay by Arnold Kling goes through all the mechanics of what he believes market-based health insurance would look like (which he refers to, surprisingly, as “insurance”) and what is wrong with the current system of going to your doctor any time you get a hangnail (described as “insulation”). [...]

By: Boyd

Boyd — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 15:44:33 +0000

Too much coverage

Kling:

The health coverage most Americans have is what I call “insulation,” not insurance. Rather than insuring them against risk…