But the whole business model of an insurance company is to take in more than they pay out. Otherwise, there is no sense in the whole concept. I imagine they all have their whiz kid investment guys playing with the deposited money doing day trading or whatever with some of the funds. But the basic principle is counter-intuitive in raw form. Why should a company be content to accept $3000 a year from you for 50 years until such day as you need $750,000 to cover some drastic medical procedure? Seems like a risky prospect to me, unless they have measures in place to deny people the coverage described in their fancy brochures.
The only way for them to not go bankrupt is for them to take in more than they pay out. There are incentives they can offer, such as reduced premiums to non-smokers, etc. But they want to know things such as family history and pre-existing conditions, which could increase the likelihood of your needing really expensive care in the future. This hit me in the face when I moved to Germany. When my data got evaluated by the German insurance company that handled people in my category of age, income, work situation and family history, they offered me coverage at €2500 a month, or about $35,000 a year. Rather a hefty yearly premium, don't you think? When people come on here and tell you everything is free in Europe, you know how much of THAT to believe.
Of the arguments for and against health insurance being handled exclusively by a government, one of the best ones in favor is that no one will be denying you coverage or treatment because you are a "bad deal" for them. One of the best arguments against is that the more ANYTHING becomes bureaucratized, the less efficient it becomes, and an unfriendly (spelled R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C-A-N) government could always defund a health service to the point where the waiting times for treatment become a death sentence. Sort of like food in the Soviet Union. The price was cheap because the government subsidized it, but there were always such shortages that the people had to stand in interminable lines to get any, and the stores often ran out before everyone could buy what they wanted. If I had been employed by a German employer, under the standard health insurance that many Germans are covered under, I would have been dead in 2004. Because I told the cardiologist that I was from the USA, passing through, and would pay cash up front, my "first available appointment" was moved up from two months in the future to quarter after 5 that same afternoon. Three days later, I was in a hospital getting emergency stents put into my heart's forward arteries. Without that, I would have been dead within a week. The guy who put the stents in said I was the luckiest guy in Europe that day, as I could have been dead as soon as a day later.
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