Insurance is supposed to help with the big expenses, not the small. Otherwise you're not talking about an insurance plan but a health care plan, two different things. A great many people who don't want to pay for exams because they're under the deductible could actually afford to but choose not to.
People paying out of pocket and being price-conscious is one of the things necessary to control the cost of health care. Unfortunately without price transparency and with preferential pricing that is very difficult to do.
sounds somewhat plausible, however, i wonder how this contrasts with co-pay visits.
Insurance is supposed to help with unavoidable and unforeseen expenses. It MAY BE in the interest of the INSURANCE COMPANY to cover preventive care to avoid larger expense to cover major illness.
I have a part time occupation which involves having conversations with people about medical care as well as other topics. Some of them report having to meet deductibles that are simply astounding to me. If I were talking to very wealthy people it would be different but very few are anything approaching wealthy. I have spoken with quite a few who say that even though they are supposedly covered under health insurance they are really what I would choose to call “INOS” or insured in name only. They have such high deductibles to meet that they run out of year before they run out of deductibles. Some say that they would be better off to have no insurance because they could have the monthly premium to spend on healthcare. I have heard from some that their only benefit from insurance is that the insurance company negotiates lower charges from providers but they still end up paying the entire charge out of pocket. Some say that they don’t go to the doctor except as a last resort because after paying premiums they simply don’t have the income.
I am old enough to recall when I could walk into a doctor’s office and be seen without an appointment and pay a total charge of five dollars or less for the doctor’s services without the need to file insurance. The current situation is the outgrowth of government programs piled on top of government programs. We would all be far better off if government had stayed completely out of medical care. Part of this revolting situation that has developed is the abominable practice of advertising prescription medicines, many of which are counterproductive to health, the goal seems to be to have every American from cradle to grave taking chronic medications for multiple conditions, most of them imaginary.
Modern medical practice is amazingly effective for trauma care. In treating chronic conditions it is often useless and even counterproductive. In many cases the greatest favor to be done to someone with chronic problems is to convince them to throw away their pills. I suffered for many years with recurring sinus infections causing untold misery and pain and the doctors I saw never offered anything except antibiotics and other pills. I finally bought a book and learned how to eliminate my sinus problems with readily available over the counter PREVENTIVE measures not involving any kind of pill or any other kind of medicine to be swallowed and have not needed to see a doctor or take antibiotics for sinus trouble in years. Why didn’t a doctor tell me how to stop the problem?
Insurance is supposed to help with the big expenses, not the small.
Plenty worth complaint about there.