MEDICAL: Bills burying Americans

Buried on page 14A of Sunday’s paper was an article on unpaid medical bills. A whopping 20 percent of all credit files or nearly 43 million people have unpaid medical bills. This is unsustainable.

For whatever reason, people don’t have medical coverage, or only part of it, so the unpaid bills are borne by the rest of us.

And simply put, the private sector does not want to insure everyone. So the government feels compelled to ride to the rescue.

Same issue in homeowners insurance. Try to buy homeowners insurance along the dixie coast and you’ll get that question about “wind” and discover it’s an excluded peril. Or earthquake insurance. Or fire insurance in the forest.

It’s government sponsored insurance or go uninsured more often than not. Evidently the private sector failed. Or at least bailed.

Maybe health insurance should act like homeowners insurance. If you want to smoke like a chimney, breed like an idiot, chew tobacco or drink incessantly or chew too much food and pork up, you’re uninsurable. Maybe get Lloyds of London (or the like) to issue reinsurance policies on health care like they do on big losses for homeowners insurance companies.

But the result is the same. No one is an island. No one lives life without affecting those around them.

Having no homeowners insurance leaves the burned out hulk of a house as a nuisance to the neighbors and can devastate nearby home values unless someone acts. Just like unpaid medical bills are a nuisance to paying customers by inflating their health care bills while millions beat a path to bankruptcy court. Somebody pays.

Imagine a world where everyone paid their own way and took responsibility for themselves.

But bailing must be better. Whether you’re a policy issuer or in need of a policy, it’s what we do.

MIKE RENO

Post Falls