LA Times: Med writer chooses not to buy health insurance
Some people like to jump out of airplanes. Some dangle from bungee cords. Others tackle Everest.
J. Duncan Moore Jr., a 53-year-old freelance medical writer in Chicago, has chosen not to buy health insurance. And in an intriguing article in the Los Angeles Times, he explains why.
Moore left a high-pressure journalism job that was making him crazy, and he watched his COBRA run out as he was unable to find another job. He failed to anticipate the journalism job collapse, and he was stuck. Instead of reflexively scrambling to find a sketchy, over-priced policy–which is what many freelancers and unemployed people are stuck with–he paused.
Moore wasn’t merely a medical writer–he was a medical writer who had covered health insurance for years, and knew the industry and the jargon as well as any executive. “I considered the insurance problem from two perspectives: my health status and history — and what insurance actually buys,” he writes. And he decides to go it alone–without insurance. “I’m not freaking out, though,” he writes. “Should I be? I’ll tell you what I know. Then you decide.”
That’s where I almost stopped reading. I’d already decided: Moore is nuts.
But…I continued reading. And while Moore didn’t change my mind, he did make me think. I wouldn’t choose that path, but maybe he’s not nuts. My apologies.
Moore is annoyingly healthy. He exercises, isn’t overweight, has no family history of serious illness, and is now free of the deadlines at his job that he thought were killing him. So, he’s a good bet, even at 53. Of course, good family history doesn’t prevent a taxi from mowing you down at a street corner, but, in fairness to Moore, let’s not play the worst-case-scenario game. He probably won’t get mowed down. A piano probably won’t fall on his head.
That’s half of his argument–he’s in good shape. He then recites the litany of all the things that are wrong with insurance, mainly that if he does get sick, there’s a good chance his insurance company would cancel on him or otherwise refuse to pay.
“Insurance,” he says, “isn’t worth what we’re being asked to pay.”
But here’s where I think his argument breaks down: “I still have money in the bank and can afford to pay most bills myself,” he writes. “A disaster costing more than $50,000 would be a problem, but short of that, I could handle it.”
That’s the thing; almost any serious medical situation is going to cost tens of thousands of dollars. Treatment for cancer, which is tough to predict or prevent, can cost far more than that. A bad fall on his bike could eat up most of his savings.
And then what? Would he feel the same way if, instead of choosing not to buy insurance, he couldn’t afford it?
Moore lays out the arguments very nicely. It’s an interesting, surprising, thought-provoking piece.
- Paul Raeburn
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