What is wrong with insurance?
I am not an expert on health insurance, so I am only asking some questions here, which I have been thinking about again due to commentary on a recent event. I think these questions are so obvious that the fact they are not being discussed makes me wonder if the answers are so obvious that I do not even understand the basics of this issue if I am not able to see them myself.
Why isn’t health insurance, and insurance generally, the business of actively preventing the unwanted outcomes which customers pay to be insured against? What service is being provided other than redistributing money with a large cut to the middlemen? This is surely worse than usury as it is not even justified by the time value of money.
Why aren’t health insurance providers in the business of identifying the correct science regarding nutrition and lifestyle, and encouraging people to act in accordance with it? I hear about how bad the medical establishment and official nutrition recommendations are, but I hear contradictory things from alternative sources. It seems that the only way for those, who do not have the time to rigorously examine all research for themselves, to know who is correct is to see who is willing to bet money on what he believes prevents bad outcomes and then seeing who is most profitable. Insurance providers could lower premiums for those who follow the best guidelines.
Every other business is made more affordable for both the producer and consumer by innovation. How else can there be innovation in insurance other than by discovering superior means of prevention?
Hearing even more recently about the fires in California and how this all would happen less if only the forests were managed better, perhaps insurance providers should be in the business of doing just that or of lobbying governments to do so. Since I hear it was illegal for insurance providers to raise rates in California, perhaps that government is just too insane to deal with for the amount of money they receive from clients there. Even so, insurance providers receive money without providing any goods or services until the damage occurs. If there is an action which is certain to prevent the damage, then there is a large margin in which the insurer would still be profitable.
The fact that insurance does not work like this in the present moment means that there are reasons why it does not. I really do not need to know what those reasons are. This is all perhaps a suggestion for a new kind of business for someone more capable than I, if existing businesses cannot change.