Why should health insurance be a right?

health insurance

Why should health insurance be a right? I sell health insurance. Before ACA, people without health insurance through their employer had to buy their own individual insurance. The cost was dependent on age and health factors, that is, the insurance was "underwritten."

Some insurance companies

like Blue Cross, additionally offered policies that were not underwritten (guaranteed issue) but they cost more since the insured people were more likely to have higher medical expenses. So, the sickest people couldn't get insured at all by most companies, and the ones who would insure them charged an arm and a leg.

Poor people would have to wait

Until they were dead and then go to the ER. The cost of this is astronomical compared to diagnosing and treating a patient in a doctor's office. The cost would get passed on to every paying customer. $700 for an ambulance ride? How many people who can't pay is that covering?

Since ACA went into effect, insurers are required to offer some plans that have only one health question: Do you use tobacco? Some of these insurers are offering their plans on the ACA Marketplace (for people eligible for a subsidy) and some are not.

I suspect companies who do not believe that poor people are more likely to have bad health. they do: more of the smoke. Some companies offer both, but the price can't be different on or off the Marketplace.

Able to afford without a subsidy

I have helped older (too young for Medicare) healthy people sign up for insurance with ACA that they would never be able to afford without a subsidy. I have signed up younger but poorer people who need surgery soon. In some cases, lives will be saved.

All the companies have raised their rates, but those have gone up every year anyway. I believe that tort reform would diminish healthcare costs. Congress dismisses this idea but many of them are lawyers and suing doctors is their cash cow.