Dose of Reality: Do Not Resuscitate

In the October issue of The Ester Republic, Neil Davis discusses the issues brought out in Dr. John Geyman's book, Do Not Resuscitate: Why the Health Insurance Industry is Dying, And How We Must Replace It. The problem, as Geyman observes and Davis concurs, is that

[T]he industry has abandoned the basic goal of insurance, which is to spread risk over the population it serves. Instead of spreading risk, the industry has focused on the avoidance of risk for itself, coupled with a transfer of that risk to the public. In the process, it is destroying its own reason for being.

The consequences of this transfer of risk are that administrative costs go up, employers and other policyholders are charged more, and fewer people are able to afford decent coverage--and as a consequence, good health care. Yet the problem is getting worse, not better, and this is due to a fundamental problem in how we approach health care in the United States.