Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, toxicity and dog-whistling are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
Insurance is a scam, pure and simple. But the system is set up to force you into it.
For profit insurance is a scam.
If someone is profiting off any insurance system, then it's a scam.
It shouldn't be a service, it should be a communal safety net.
Like, insuring a 2 million super car shouldn't be on everyone, but one of the largest parts of auto insurance is people needing healthcare after. Take that out of the equation and auto insurance becomes more sensible.
For-profit insurance for most things isn't a scam. Insuring against the destruction of a house or car, for example is a calculated tradeoff; on average, you lose money (expected value is negative), but only a little at a time. In exchange, you get a guarantee that you won't lose an asset you can't afford to replace.
For-profit health insurance in the USA is a special sort of scam because they negotiate prices that aren't available to the public, often an order of magnitude lower.
Yeah, I talked about how assets are different than things we need, like health...
They say they're doing that...
But it's a scam where insurance says without insurance it would be 20k, but they got it down to 10k. They pay 5k and put you on the hook for the other 5k.
You think you just saved 15k by having insurance, but if you didn't and got a 20k bill, they'd offer to "discount" due to no insurance and say it's 10k.
That "discount" is the real price, the only reason anyone mentions 20k is so insurance seems effective.
If you can't pay the 10k, it might get lowered again, but eventually they'll sell the 10k debt to a collector for like 5k or even less, and the collector will ask for the total, but will accept anything over they paid from day 1.
It's a scam...
You just don't understand it, that doesn't mean it's not a scam, even if that explanation wasn't enough and you still don't understand but I give up on replying again.
The original comment references luxury assets like supercars. In the USA, the average adult needs a car of some sort to function in society, and often cannot afford the unplanned purchase of a reliable used car (let's call that $15K). Collision insurance that will cover most of the cost of a replacement car is a reasonable value for many people, and the insurance company doesn't have any special leverage like access to massive discounts on replacement cars (they may have access to modest discounts on repair services, but nothing like what health insurance has).
I think I made it pretty clear I understand that for-profit health insurance is a scam because providers overcharge anyone who doesn't have it to an extreme degree. That's not the case for pretty much anything else.
You've made it clear you think you understand...
But that apparently just means you're unwilling to learn.
Best of luck, feel free to keep replying, someone else may help