Chart by Evercore ISI
Comforting chart, eh?
When I lived in Texas a local radio station would often play commercials for a “healthcare sharing ministry” called Medi-Share. It was advertised as a way for Christian members to lower their insurance premiums by “[sharing] their money to pay for each other’s eligible medical bills.”1 One commercial featured a member who thankfully boasted that Medi-Share members had “shared” something like $150,000 in medical bills associated with an illness or procedure that had come on suddenly. Upon hearing that ad I would always wonder to myself: “Why would anyone who anticipates having minimal healthcare expenses himself want to potentially “share” in the outrageously large medical bills of others?” It just seemed like an odd advertising strategy, even if the basic concept is essentially what the insurance industry is all about. You pay monthly premiums, which often add up to a large amount of money over time, and you might not use your benefits at all or you may hit the benefit lottery, so to speak, if you have the misfortune of needing expensive medical care.
What bothered me about the commercial is the same thing that bothers me whenever I hear Democrats’ ideas for “fixing” the healthcare crisis, namely the absence of appropriate outrage for the fact that routine procedures now cost thousands of dollars and often tens of thousands, and more complicated procedures can easily get into the hundreds of thousands even if we’re only talking about a week’s hospital stay or an illness that isn’t chronic.
Democrats’ great solutions for ‘solving’ the healthcare crisis never address the real problem of spiraling costs. Instead their plans focus solely on transferring the cost to someone else using the muscle of the federal government to extort the money. Make your wealthy neighbor pay for it, that’s the ticket. Nice, eh?
Putting aside how morally corrupt this great plan is and how inconsistent it is with the concept of individual liberty upon which America was founded, their plan has zero chance of “working” long term because it does nothing to address the systemic problem of price inflation. Margaret Thatcher famously quipped that the trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other peoples’ money, but even she probably could not have envisioned how fast the money could be sucked away when routine care starts costing thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and then millions. If the socialists truly believe that those who’ve spent their lives building their wealth are going to sit quietly by while it’s siphoned away for the benefit of freeloading strangers, better think again. The scam might “work” for a little while, but eventually it will blow up in our faces like the scams of the socialists running Venezuela. The socialists will do what they always do (it’s instinctive) and propose to solve the problem of runaway costs by imposing price controls, but we’ve seen how well such schemes work. No thank you.
Republicans, at least the free-market conservatives, have a different idea for fixing the healthcare crisis in America and that idea is to bring prices back to sanity naturally through competition and reduced government interference. That would make healthcare and insurance affordable, so that people could pay for their own healthcare. With everyone sharing the burden (as it should be), each person’s share is light, and there is no need for the class warfare that socialists like Bernie Sanders are so desperately trying to gin up, and that can’t possibly end well even if a few can profit in the short term. Voters, especially those who care about the futures of their children, would be well-advised to embrace the inarguable truth of the famous idiom: There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Really, there isn’t. What terrible price will you or your children pay for the lure of trying to get something for nothing?
If healthcare truly matters to you, vote “R” this election.
~CW
1 https://mychristiancare.org/medi-share/what-is-medishare/
Categories: Political
Pesky Truth 
Competition is the only way. But if I had my druthers we would go back to when there was NO INSURANCE! Probably half of the dollars spent on health care does not go to your health. It goes to the marble halls of Highmark, Blue Cross, and the many HMO’s and others. Then they tell you how to do your health care. They want me to see my doctor at least once a year whether I have a healthcare need or not! And when I don’t they ‘gig’ my pcp. They called asking why hubby wasn’t getting his bp script. It’s none of their business. Between him and his doc!
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I believe the problem with runaway costs is what I like to call One Way Rights. Under the progressive system customers and patients have more rights than medical businesses and doctors. This is why liberals will not consider tort reform and that is why, for instance, a women ingesting vaginal jelly on toast wins millions in a court of law when she becomes pregnant. Ignorance is rewarded and we are all paying for it. I do not know why products come with instructions or why doctors provide patients instructions because if a person ignores those directions they can win millions in a court of law. We are no longer equal under the law, certain groups of people are provided preferential rights.
As I said previously, Americans have a right to pursue health, but the government cannot create rights. Rights come before government and laws. We are all born with the same rights. The job of the government is to create laws to protect those rights. For example, I have a right to brush my teeth and practice good hygiene for better health, but I do not have to do it. And if I neglect my health should it be the responsibility of others to pay for my negligence? Over half of all medical issues today are self inflicted through obesity, addictions, risk taking, and not pursuing good health. Why should everyone suffer if a person refuses to practice their right to health. All rights are an individual responsibility that every American has on a collective basis.
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Out-of-control lawsuits are definitely a large contributor to runaway costs, Patrick, and of course it’s something that Republicans have long been focused on but can’t make any headway with Democrats obstructing the way.
I also agree with what you expressed in your second paragraph and it’s why I advocate for a return to a free market as a solution to the mess created when people try to create rights and entitlements out of thin air. In a free market all parties have no man-made impediments to the natural incentives for pursuing what’s in their best interests. Insurance companies would offer the best rates to the healthiest people and this in turn would be an incentive for people to live healthier lives if they want that financial reward. There would also be an insurance market for a lot of “pre-existing” conditions. It would cost more, naturally, but as long as insurance companies could make a profit the incentive would be there for a market. And there should be a market where doctors and consumers can do business without the insurance companies. But Democrats don’t like the free market because it requires people to take some responsibility for their own health and their own costs.
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That is one scary chart, CW and it looks like costs have nearly doubled just in the last 10 years.
I read a couple of reviews on Medi-Share and they confirmed my first thought – what a terrible idea it is, plus it sounds a lot like Obamacare in that everyone is paying more, even if you only require minimal care. That same transfer method is at work in both plans, so I’d bet it’s run by Democrats too.
One of the reviewers said:
“I love the concept of creating a nonprofit health insurance pool to spread the risk of incurring very high health care costs.”
She liked the concept of it but in reality it didn’t work near as well as buying insurance from a for-profit company. As long as both parties are agreeable to the terms, there’s nothing wrong with that – except to Democrats.
Their angle of playing up to Christians is a dirty tactic, imo.
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I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with Medi-Share since it’s voluntary but I thought it was a bizarre ad strategy since most people don’t get too excited about the idea of “sharing” in ridiculously large medical bills. Seems to me it would only be attractive to people who have high medical bills, which is obviously problematic.
When my husband has a relatively routine outpatient surgery a few years ago, with about a 4-hour recovery in a medical facility, we got bill for $65K. I called their office and said I think there was a typo because it says his bill is $65K and the girl said, “No, there’s no mistake.” The strategy anymore is for these medical businesses to throw out whatever absurd figure they want, and to see what the insurance company pays. We, as consumers, are completely removed from the process. We can’t comparison shop and we have no idea what the going rates are because there’s no such thing. A lot of people are getting rich by gaming the system, and the Democrats’ answer to all this is to socialize the problem (but of course only those making a certain amount of money will be required to chip in). We need a transparent, free-market system and we need it fast.
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We had a similar situation with my husband where the surgeon’s bill we got was around $6-7000, but after a few phone calls to his office, hospital, etc, we found out that his hospital-negotiated rate was about one-fifth of that. They bill high just to see what Medicare and co-pay insurance will pay. I’ve heard stories about people who offer to pay in cash usually negotiate a much lower cost for both the surgeon and the hospital.
Being voluntary is Medi-Share’s only redeeming quality from the little I saw. Here’s a link to one of the reviews I read (meant to include it earlier) and this lady lists both pros and cons, Check out the list of things that qualify as pre-existing condition, including heartburn. That’s why I called it terrible, and like you said, only those with big medical bills would want it.
https://www.wellsteps.com/blog/2018/01/06/medishare-insurance-medishare-review/
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Wow, hard to understand why anyone would go with Medi-Share, except I know that people are desperate for options.
I don’t claim to have all the answers when it comes to healthcare, but I know that it’s become such a game that you practically need a PhD to figure it all out.
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