Science Forums 2

[HydrogenBond]

The American Healthcare system is based on capitalism. But if one looks at how insurance works, it uses a socialist approach. In other words, everyone is required to pool their money (roughly similar amounts for similar services) irregardless of one's use of the health care system. In a free capitialist system, one should only pay for what they consume. Those who who consume more resources should pay more. But in the insurance commune the healthy are required to suppliment the unhealthy.

For example, consider the commodity, orange juice. If I only drink one gallon every two weeks and someone else drinks one gallon per day, we are both required to pay for 7.5 gallons every two weeks. This is not free market capitalism but socialism. The socialism approach increases the incentive to drink more orange juice, to get your money's worth, causing the price we pay for OJ to increase faster than inflation.

In the social insurance situation, working hard to be healthy is not rewarded by the commune. One's hard efforts are put into the commune pool, where those who are slack with their health will recieved more than their efforts would dictate in a capitalist situation. The result is the harder worker to be healthy losing incentive and gradually getting lazy with health, lowering the amount of healthy output, causing the commune's resources to get scarce or prices to rise.

Maybe insurance premiums should be broken down into their capitalists and socialists components to reflect the free market price and the supplimental socialist cost/benefit. If one is in the black with respect to the socialist benefit they are given the choice to contribute to the commune's health charity or not.