re: #547 Gus 802

I don’t buy it. It’s done all over the world. There’s no excuse and I am not interested in the defense of insurance company snakes.

So what you’re saying is that the insurance company has a moral obligation to make this bad bet? And any other bad bet that may come along? That it has plenty of money, and no number of bad bets could possibly sink it, because they have, like, scads of money?

Rubbish. Insurance is only possible when premiums cover the money paid out on insured losses. Insurance companies are not snakes. You demonize them without just cause and without thinking through what must happen if they act as you would have them act.

There are State-run health systems here and there. They run, badly, but they provide coverage of a sort. You can go to a hospital, perhaps. Free. But consider the quality of care. strapped down and left to die of dehydration.
This is an extreme case, but it’s emblematic. State run institutions, really big organizations not local efforts, are not much good at their work. Be it the post office, or big city school systems, or Britain’s NHS, or our own VA, they just don’t come up to the standard of private enterprise.

The armed forces somehow manage to escape this syndrome. NASA avoided it for decades before beginning to succumb. This observation is not a law of physics, and it does have its exceptions. Just not many.