Unbridled Wealth Redistribution Breeds Corruption

There is nothing that says health care policies are not working than 13% annual increases in health insurance premiums for healthy people. My wife and I have not had a health insurance claim in over two decades and until this year we had a grandfathered health insurance plan. Since our health insurance plan and health status did not change, we have to conclude that unbridled wealth redistribution leads to cronyism and corruption. The insurance companies raised the rates because they could get away with it. What options did we have? Some people might call that an unintended consequence of the ACA, I call it cronyism. At some point the customer has to say, enough is enough. Not only did our most recent grandfathered health insurance premium exceed 8.05% of our adjusted gross income but so did every ACA plan. I am 63 years old. For the first time in my life, I can not find affordable health insurance. Sadly this is the ACA’s most important accomplishment.

Unbridled Wealth Redistribution Versus The Healthy Customer

This embrace of unbridled wealth redistribution has corrupted the only market that had any resemblance of a well-functioning market. The only way the ACA health exchanges would succeed at attracting healthy customers is if they offered affordable health insurance. Putting healthy customers in the same market as high-risk pool and subsidized customers was probably too much to ask. Where the subsidized customer is not price sensitive, the healthy customer is. The ACA health exchange is meaningless to the healthy customer if every health insurance plan costs more than 8.05% of a person’s adjusted gross income. It did not have to be this way. The ACA chose to leave cost control to the next administration.

Making Markets Work For The Healthy Customer

In 2015 my wife and I came to the conclusion that the health care industrial complex would not willingly change their ways so we started building up our HSA. At the end of 2016 I asked our insurance company if they would offer me a lower rate. They declined and we chose to drop our health insurance. The markets are working, the customer has spoken, and our health policies are dysfunctional. Although we are nervous about our choice, we think we can do a better job managing our health care than the health care industrial complex. It is amazing how fast the money builds up when you divert your old health insurance premium amount into a savings account. I am mildly optimistic we can get better health care advice for non-emergency room treatments if we tell our health care providers that we are a cash customer.  Every month we get by without a cancer diagnosis makes us a little more confident we made the right decision. If the insurance companies want us back all they have to do is show us an affordable health insurance plan!