Neil Davis on Sleep in Saturdays with Matt Want

Matt Want hosts a local talk show on 660-KFAR on Saturday mornings from 10 to 11 am, choosing a different topic each week. This Saturday's topic is the US health care system and Neil Davis has been invited to be on the show. You can call in with questions or ask for advice; the phone number is 907.458.8255 (458-TALK).

(Cross-posted on The Ester Republic blog)

Insuring the Uninsurable

In February's Dose of Reality, Davis looks at the some 60,000 Alaskans who are refused health insurance by the for-profit industry and the alternative they are provided by the state: health insurance so expensive that almost no one has purchased it:

The cheapest ACHIA policy is a PPO plan with a deductible of $15,000 and maximum out-of-pocket expense of $25,000. A person twenty-five years old can buy this policy for $1,848 per year, but it costs a sixty-year-old person $6,384. Each of those persons is at risk for another $25,000, the out-of-pocket maximum, and each will have to pay the $15,000 deductible before receiving any benefit whatsoever from the policy. Thus the twenty-five-year-old will pay out only $1,848 for health care if he needs no health care during the year (all money goes to policy premiums) but at worst he might have to pay out another $25,000 for the health care he needs before the policy covers all costs thereafter. Thus, his worst-case expenses are $26,848 per year.

How many 25-year-olds can afford $15,000 in deductibles?