Martin, I think you’ve missed pretty well every point in the article. First, let’s look at: Nor does a generational subsidy from healthy young people to less healthy old people make it “not insurance”. After all, with car insurance, older “wreckless” drivers subsidize young reckless ones.
Where in the world did you get the idea that older drivers subsidize younger ones, at least in the absence of state regulation forcing it on them? Certainly where I live, the rates for 18 year old males is much higher than what I pay, not to mention people with poor driving records. Why? because their individual risk is higher.
But I think the really core error is here:All insurance socializes risk by transferring money to those with greater needs from those with lesser needs. That’s why we have it — none of us know for sure which group we are in.
Insurance, at least regular free-market insurance, doesn’t “socialize” anything. You don’t need to have any “social” aspect whatsoever except for the contractual relationship between the bookie, er, insurer and you, the insured. I do suspect, though, that the confusion that leads you to think of insurance as a “societal” thing may be at the heart of a lot of the misunderstanding I’m hoping to help resolve.
