Slicing the Health Care Groups Differently

TW: On the previous post I broke folks down into three groups health care wise: those covered by government plans, those on employer plans and those without or with little coverage. Another more simple way to break folks down is simply this: either you low-risk health wise or not.

Low-risk meaning you exist on the part of the health continuum where youth, good genes and clean living make one an attractive health insurance candidate or...not. An individual at the end of the day only controls the one variable, "clean-living" (i.e. no smoking, proper nutrition/exercise, excessive drinking etc.).

Medicare mitigates the age challenge once folks get to 65. There have been suggestions that this age be increased to mitigate costs. I would bet you any amount of money this will NEVER happen. Raising the social security age maybe, but not Medicare eligibility because then the risk of being shoved into the third group rises quickly.

Folks with bad genes are left to fend for themselves if not covered by GOOD employee plans. I ask what is the moral imperative that makes 65 a magic number for those in this group? Free market solutions would do nothing for this as they are bad risks (as are folks increasingly as they age).

At the end of the day health insurance is not so much about employment or mainly about clean living but about age and genes, two variables that the individual does not control.