The Health Business Blog has a funny anecdote about the ramifications of forced health insurance enrollment - excerpt here:

I almost laughed out loud when I read the Economist’s article on US health care reform: Economics focus, Creeps and bounds (July 21, 2007)

…Massachusetts obliges individuals to buy insurance or else face higher taxes. This requirement lowers premiums overall, by forcing relatively healthy, low-risk people into a system they might otherwise avoid. Their premiums help to cover the costs of people who are more likely to need health care.

Sounds logical doesn’t it? But it’s hard to square with my 26.3 percent premium increase for next year, which coincides with the mandate’s phase-in. Am I supposed to believe that my increase would have been 30 or 40 percent otherwise? What does “lowers premiums overall” really mean in a market where premiums are rising rapidly for most everyone?

I have yet to hear of an economic system that forced people to increase demand lowered prices. That just makes no sense. However, if the uninsured were to go to individual HDHP’s with lower premiums - that could help drive down the cost of not only premiums, but health care itself, which is really the only way to fix this problem.

I ran across The InsureBlog the other day, and today they had a great article that I wanted to comment on. It gets summed up pretty well in this excerpt:

“A 50% cut in health insurance premiums would only reduce the number of uninsured Americans by 3%, estimates a Rand study out Monday, which suggests that incentives and government tax cuts won’t lead to universal coverage.”

Thankfully - the guys at InsureBlog get it right, by pointing out that these comments are made, despite compelling evidence to the contrary.

High Deductible Health plans may not be attractive to the chronically ill, of course - their premiums are going to be higher (although not up in the stratosphere, as they would with a PPO, if they even qualified).

My personal opinion is that the HSA+HDHP is attractive not only because of the cheaper health insurance (no one gets excited about HAVING to pay for something), but also the financial benefits of the HSA (tax diversion, interest income). THAT is where the interest comes in. If you were able to contribute $15k over 7-8 years to your HSA, the interest alone would pay your premiums (not that you can actually pay premiums with the HSA, it’s a bottom-line thing). That’s not considering the tax benefits on top of that.