The cost of costs

 The reason insurers impose deductibles and copays is to discourage utilization. They believe, no doubt correctly, that if people have to spend their own money they may choose not to get as many medical services or buy as many medications. The problem with this reasoning is that people aren ’t wise shoppers for medicine. Now, I’ll be the first to shout it from the rooftops that as a nation, we spend far too much on medical services that are low value or worthless. In fact, I will do so (metaphorically) later in this book. But it’s not because consumers of medicine aren’t wise s hoppers, and making them pay out of pocket isn’t going to change that.The idea of substantial deductibles is nonsensical on its face. It seems to imply that any and all medical spending, starting anew each year, must be discouraged. Sure, it might happen that you feel sick, decide not to go to the doctor because you don ’t want to pay, and whatever was wrong gets better on its own.[1] But what might also happen is either a) you have some obvious medical need, let ’s say a broken leg or a squeezing pain on the left side of your chest radiating into your arm, and it ends up costing you $8,000 which you don’t have, just your bad luck; or b) you have a less obvious need -- say, oh I don’t know, you bang your head and you have a really bad headache – but you don’t want to risk spending a lot of money so you hope it will just go away, and it turns out you had a brain hemorrhage and...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs