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0 pointsCaptainZapp11y ago0 comments

  If they perfectly assess risk, your annual premium will just be your annual cost plus all of the administrative costs of insurance

Uhh, no. That's not how insurance works.

The idea of insurance is pooling risk. So if you're perfectly healthy you are in essence paying for other people's treatment.

However, if you happen to run into very expensive health issues it's you that profits from the premiums of other people.

If insurance works as you describe it it wouldn't make sense at all and everybody would individually be responsible for her entire medical cost. With partially ruinous consequences for the individual.

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3 comments · 1 top-level

RobAley11y ago· 2 in thread

> If insurance works as you describe it it wouldn't make sense at all and everybody would individually be responsible for her entire medical cost. With partially ruinous consequences for the individual.

I think that's his point.

readme11y ago

The exact costs will never be calculable in advance.

We are never going to reach a point where we can accurately predict whether someone will be hit by a bus or shot.

Scoundreller11y ago

But we're getting better and better at it.

And better at real-time charging and paying for insurance in micro-increments. Predicting over the course of a year is hard, over the next microsecond, not so much.

Going to the gun range? Your insurance premium just went up by $6/hour. Speed in your car? Slam on your brakes suddenly? Driving quickly in heavy traffic? Drive at 3AM on Saturdays?

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