A Remote Possibility?

Considering all the hub-bub centered around the Obamacare debate, I've had a few thoughts that I've never encountered or heard mentioned as a possible explanation for our present woes. So I thought I'd share some of my ideas here.

To start off, insurance is based on the idea that you have a large pool of people, and you are protecting against various risks. Hopefully in that pool of people, by and large, most of the people are low risk so to speak. In the case of home insurance, insurance companies are banking on most of their customers having no catastrophic events. If all goes according to plan, the insurance companies will collect fees from their customers, and then will have plenty to cover the unfortunate few who do find themselves victim to a fire, tornado, tree falling through the roof, etc. And that system works pretty well. They only get antsy when a large segment of their market is affected by something far-reaching; like a hurricane or some other wide-spread damage. But hopefully they've got customers all over the country who will be able to "cover" the losses and pick up the slack. And once they get everyone back up and running, then they'll be able to go back to the old, safe pattern of simply collecting premiums from people who most likely will not need to draw on the insurance company.

That works fine for home insurance or auto insurance- or most any kind of insurance you can think of. However there is a glaring difference when it comes to our health insurance companies. There isn't as much variability in the pool of insured as in times past. Remember the example of home insurance? You need to have a depth of people paying in who won't be placing as much burden as some of the more needy. In the case of health insurance, the young are the ones who are as a rule healthier and incur lower medical costs. However in our present society, we are seeing the aging of the Baby-boomers. And as they are aging, insurance companies are experiencing rising costs. The double whammy is that there is no corresponding influx of the young to help cover the rising expenses. The demographics of our country have changed drastically, and we're beginning to see the effects.

Aside from the moral ramifications, Roe v. Wade has single-handedly reduced our population by 40,000,000. Imagine where the insurance industry might be if it had an addition of 40,000,000 young people pumping in premiums? Even half that many would have a substantial positive impact. I personally do not believe we would have the health crisis we are seeing now. Granted we might have a different sort of crisis, but I do not believe it would be the one now before us- insurance companies simply cannot bring in funds fast enough to cover our aging society.

And what about the declining birth rate? Whether this is because of Roe v. Wade or in addition to the effects of it, the fact is we are not maintaining birth rates and have not been for many years. Is it any wonder that we are experiencing difficulty? Difficulty not only in the realm of health insurance, but also in funding for social security, medicare, tax revenues, etc. I may be over simplifying, but it seems like we've been on this course for collision for some time now. It was not a matter of if, but when.

Perhaps if I were some world class economist, I'd write my dissertation on this subject. Or maybe write a book. At least maybe I could perhaps be published in some fancy-schmancy professional journal. Who knows? But I'm simply a 30-something stay at home mother, so I don't think you'll be seeing me on the best-seller list anytime soon. I suppose this blog will just have to do. Even though it's only an infinitesimal step, it feels good to get this off my chest. I'd feel better if only there was something I could about all this mess.