No Matter Who Pays For It, Medical Care and Health Insurance in California is Expensive

I am a health insurance broker in Southern California and work daily to help people finance their medical expenses with insurance. In my years of doing this work (over one decade) I have noticed three paradoxes of health insurance and one truth, or axiom.

The first paradox of health insurance is that: everyone wants it yet no one wants to pay for it. In my work, I am amazed at the intransigence of people to buy any insurance – at any price. Individual high deductible coverage is affordable, yet I have found that many people are offended with the notion of having to pay anything for their health care. Many people chose not to purchase coverage because they are in good health and (unwisely) they decide to wait until they are sick to purchase insurance.

But there is a second paradox: you have to buy it before you need it and if you wait until you need it you can’t qualify to buy it. Like waiting until after you crash your car to buy auto insurance, medical insurance companies decline to offer health insurance to people with pre-existing conditions.

There is a third paradox: everyone wants someone else to pay for his or her health insurance. Employees want employers to pay for it. Employers with no group health insurance or that pay little or nothing for dependent coverage want employees to pay for it. The uninsured want the taxpayers to pay for it in the form of county run public hospitals and medical clinics. The government wants employers and tax payers to pay for it.

One truth about medical insurance: no matter who pays for it, health care is costly. Shifting the burden from the self-insured (i.e., uninsured) to the taxpayers, or from employers to employees does not change the fact that the medical miracles that doctors and hospitals perform daily are costly. When we are sick we want the best medical care and as much of it as we can get, no matter what the cost. In my opinion, nothing will change until we accept the fact that, like paying for food and housing, we must pay for our health care – only in advance of when we need it.

Medical insurance in California is easy and affordable. Click here to get a California Health Insurance Online Quote. Click here for applications – either an online application or you can print out an application and mail it in.