That question and a few others that cut to the chase on the flap between ObamaCare and the Catholic Church are central to a WSJ op-ed by Univ. of Chicago prof John Cochrane.
Well worth reading in its entirety.
The answer:
Insurance is a bad idea for small, regular and predictable expenses.
There are good reasons that your car insurance company doesn’t add $100 per year to your premium and then cover oil changes, and that your health insurance doesn’t charge $50 more per year and cover toothpaste.
You’d have to fill out mountains of paperwork, the oil-change and toothpaste markets would become much less competitive, and you’d end up spending more.
Every increase in coverage means an increase in premiums.
Another question: What’s the difference between “access” and “cost.”
I have “access” to toothpaste because I have two bucks in my pocket and a competitive supplier.
Anyone who can afford a cell phone can afford toothpaste or pills or condoms.
Poor women who can’t afford birth control are a red herring in this debate.
The very poor typically don’t have employer-provided health insurance in the first place.
But, Americans, when paying even modest co-payments, choose to spend their money on other things.
They prefer a new iPod to a “wellness visit” to the doctor.
Cochrane’s overall conclusion:
It all leads back to the elephant in the room: the tax deductibility of employer-provided group insurance.
If your employer pays you $100 less in salary and buys $100 of group insurance for you, you don’t pay taxes on that amount.
Hence, the more insurance costs and covers, the less in taxes you seem to pay. (Even that savings is an illusion: The government still needs money and raises overall tax rates to make up the difference.)
To add insult to injury, this tax deduction does not apply to portable, guaranteed-renewable individual insurance.
You don’t get the tax break if your employer gives you the $100 and you buy a policy — a policy that will stay with you if you get sick, leave employment or get divorced.
The pre-existing conditions crisis is largely a creature of tax law.
You don’t lose your car insurance when you change jobs.
Again, well worth reading in its entirety ,,,
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