Car insurance is relatively simple. I shop around, telling them how much coverage I want. They request my driving history, and give me a quote. At any time, I can shop around and change insurance policies without any problems. Once it’s time to collect payment, it’s a relatively simple matter. What makes health insurance so difficult, controlling, unreliable, and expensive? For example, with health insurance:
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Can only shop during a specific enrollment period
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Policies are so complex, the vast majority of the population can’t understand them
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It’s commonly provided in part by the employer because buying a policy otherwise is prohibitively expensive
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Insurance companies are notorious for denying payments
Obamacare really fucked up the health insurance market. Open enrollment is because of Obamacare. Obamacare was written by the insurance lobby. They created a porous law and likely already had ideas to exploit it before it passed. And they have. It has been an incredible boon to them and Americans have suffered. Healthcare was NOT this expensive before Obamacare and insurance wasn’t this complicated and was more affordable too.
Obamacare is the biggest piece of regulatory capture in our lifetime, and in a time of rampant regulatory capture, that’s saying a lot. It also showcases why our 2 party system is just broken. When the so called left option can produce such a broken capitalist piece of legislation.
You’re only partially right. There was a penalty for not having healthcare that was reduced to $0 where it has stayed since 2017. When that happened premiums shot up because healthier people decided to not get insurance. Considering health insurance is about pooling risk, healthier people left weren’t there to subsidize the relatively sicker folks. So, it’s also a problem of incentives
I don’t think you can blame it all on Obamacare. I vividly remember wondering “How TF do people with families afford this?!” when looking at the individual vs. family insurance at a job back in 2002. Premiums were skyrocketing then, and they’ve been skyrocketing ever since.
Open enrollment isn’t because of Obamacare. Your employer-provided health plan had open enrollment periods before the ACA.