We've evolved into a culture of trusting doctors as shamans and wizards. There's a certain paternalism and nanny-statism, maternalism to the relationship that I think is extremely unhealthy for adults. But it's certainly true that we struggle to make wise decisions. How hard is it to buy insurance as a self-employed person? I don't know the answer to that. And these were essentially perfect health records. We're rising rapidly. People who study those things say if we went back to pre-ACA, that the individual healthcare market would perhaps no longer exist. It would simply be recognized as an essentially uninsurable risk for individuals,. still insurable to some degree for
Economist Ed Dolan of the Niskanen Center talks about employer-based health insurance with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Dolan discusses how unusual it is relative to other countries that so many Americans get their health insurance through their employer and the implications of that phenomenon for the structure of the health insurance market. Dolan explores the drawbacks of this structure and makes the case for what he calls Universal Catastrophic Coverage.