Health Care vs. Health Insurance...words matter

InsureBlog has a short but to-the-point post on why "health care" is not synonymous with "health insurance" and why it matters.

Their basic point is that trying to fix the rising cost of health insurance without dealing with the underlying problem of the rising cost of health care will lead to moving the problem around, but not solving it. I'm sure they're right.

But I more often hear people actually confuse "health coverage" with "health insurance". And I'd love to see a post addressing how those two terms differ and why it's important.

I recently watched Michael Moore's documentary Sicko, and he focused primarily on people who did indeed have health insurance...but discovered that they weren't really covered for very much or very well.

I think a big takeaway from that movie is that yes, it's terrible that 1 in 6 Americans doesn't have health insurance at all, but our health care system is a real clusterf$%^ because the 5 in 6 who do have health insurance often don't have sufficient coverage. At least that was my takeaway.

And for all those naysayers who say the problem with that lies with irresponsible people and foolish government mandates I would simply ask why health insurers are ever more profitable? not ever more revenue-generating...ever more profitable.

They certainly seem to be doing OK in this era of rising health care costs.

Comments

[Annie]

Glad you asked.

I write about this frequently, and many of my comments on the NYTimes, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal Health Blog address this. (Link at my name to a post I wrote about the terms being intentionally conflated)

[Dale]

In my experience there is absolutely no relationship between health care and health insurance. What health care I have gotten at least in the last 5 years has been either paid out of pocket or with my money in a health savings account. The $600 per month I pay for health insurance has never paid one cent of any bill for health care. So I do not see how reforming health insurance will help me or anyone else.

[Jerry Cohen]

Fundamentally the difference between health care and health insurance is that health insurance should designed and priced to deal with potential catastrophic losses while health care implies more of a preventative / maintenance focus. Over the last 30 years " health insurance " has been pushed to take on more and more of the expenses realted to health care and the pricing reflects this. There are also many " below the surface" costs associated with our health care/insurance system that are demanded at all levels.These costs effect hospitals; pharmacuetical companies; doctor offices and insurance companies such as postage; heat and light; staffing and training; benefits for employees; malpractice insurance etc. Americans don't often focus on the way inflation effects these operational expenses which ultimately impact on why our .