There has been a lot of talk about health insurance recently in the news. The whole point of insurance is to share some of the risk that we face in life. The idea is that if all the healthy people pay into one account, then if someone gets sick, that person can afford the care they need without going bankrupt. Furthermore, that pooled account can be used as an investment tool to make more money so that the account is growing on its own and contributing to the larger group. By distributing the cost of medicine through a population, we all share the risk so we don’t have to worry about getting sick because everyone is taken care of. 

Too bad that is not how it is functioning here in the United States. We are paying into the insurance companies, but then when we need care, we find ourselves getting denied. Additionally, the pool is limited to full-time workers so everyone too young or old to work, trapped in the gig economy, or at home taking care of kids or elderly parents, is left to their own devices. 

It has also come to our attention that the stewards of our resources have become more of a problem than a solution. Instead of bringing good health, the health insurance industry has become a financial cancer, growing at the expense of the ones we put them in charge to protect. 

So, instead of giving these corporations all of our hard earned cash, we need to pool our resources under guidance of trustworthy people within a strong system of accountability. The good news is there are many places in the world that have found better solutions to their healthcare needs. We only need to find the countries with the best life expectancy and check out what they are doing when it comes to universal healthcare. As a democracy, we absolutely can find something that works better, we just need the courage to choose it.