Insurance is a matter of statistics. Statistically speaking, x% of the people are likely to need (and get) pap smears every year. y% of the people are likely to need (and get) prostate screenings. z% of the people are likely to need chemotherapy. Etc. Insurance premiums already take that into account. The average health care costs of a person of working age is $xxxx per year and the premiums of everyone are based on that. (Note: I didn't say they ARE that, I said they're based on it.) This "pool" of people you're in with might have a different demographic and therefore your average cost might be different than someone in a different pool, but at the end of the day it's all based on statistics.
So anyone's claim that they're having to pay for services they can't use (like a man saying he doesn't want to pay for a pap smear) doesn't understand what insurance *is*. He's paying for my pap smear and I'm paying for his prostate exam, but (if the pool were just the two of us) we're not paying for 2 of each.
With that in mind, the next question is: Why do we have insurance? I'm not speaking of legally, I'm speaking of personal choice. Why do we *want* to be insured? The answer is that if we had to pay all of our medical care out of pocket, we run the risk of it costing much more than our premiums and copays. Of course the reality is that it would cost more for some and less for others. (I'm ignoring the fact that an insurance provider gets a steep discount on medical costs, I know. I used to work in that industry and I know how big the discounts are. But anyway...) Most of us believe we get a better deal by putting our money into the pool and pulling it out as needed. But that means we're counting on all the other people to also be in the pool. Which means the 70 year old man is paying for labor and delivery costs. The 25 year old woman is paying for his heart medication. I'm paying for the pediatrician to immunize her kids, and the psychologist to proscribe her husband's antidepressants. And they're all paying for my low bone density screenings and therapy. Except we're NOT. We're paying for the statistical likelihood that *someone* in our group will need each of those services. And we're all pulling from the pool as needed for our own services.
If you really don't want to risk paying for anyone else's services that you won't possibly need yourself, you should not be insured at all by anyone. Not even self-insured since that's still based on statistical probability within the population. You should instead pay all of your medical costs out of pocket.
If you choose (key word: "choose") NOT to do that, it means you're perfectly aware that it would possibly cost you more and when that happens you're happy to let someone else in the pool pay for *your* services that *they* won't use.
So STFU and do the same.
/rant
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