Health Insurance and Life’s Inconveniences

Some real cool cat whacked my car a couple of weeks ago when it was sitting on the street.  In addition to putting about a 12” x 12” tattoo on the side of my door broke my side view mirror off.  Thanks for not leaving a note Jack.

I took the car to the dealership and they kindly glued the mirror unit back together at no cost, but sadly the glue did not hold and I had to go shopping for a new mirror.  The part at the dealership was $160. I found a replacement part online, new (but not original manufacturer I don’t think) for $67 delivered to my house.  I’ll do the install myself.

“Consumer Driven Health Care” for my car as it were.  My car was sick through no fault of its own.  I decided what “doctor” I wanted to have look at it.  With the diagnosis and pricing in hand for the cure, I elected to cure of my choice at a price that was competitive in the market.  If I had been in a wreck and significant damage were done to my car, my insurance would have been there to take care of what would have been a really big problem.

High Deductible Health Plans with Health Savings Accounts are the same concept.  You, as the consumer pay for the smaller stuff (although many HDHPs provide basic well care) and if something major happens, your insurance is there to cover you.  You have some ability to shop based on price (transparency is getting better over time) and can decide from whom you want to purchase services.

Folks have lost sight of the fact that health insurance is there for the big stuff.  Not really a novel concept, but really the basis for sustainable value based health care.