Don't get me wrong... I hate insurance companies almost as much as I hate credit card companies.  My concern is only that it may be tougher to get insurance if you take out the profit incentive of the insurance companies to offer health care insurance.  I believe that many insurers would simply stop writing health insurance and there would be less competition in the marketplace.  As you pointed out, they have other lines of insurance that they can sell for a profit, why would they want to continue to offer a product that could cost them money if they get hit with higher than expected claims, if they cannot make profit even if they manage their claims very well?

One might argue that competition would not be important if the insurers that remained were not a allowed to make a profit because that would serve as the primary method of price control.  However, without competition, our choice of coverage would diminish as well.  We might not be able to get coverage that we actually want.

It is an interesting concept - it would be nice to know how the Swiss managed to make such a change.  I just don't see it working well here.

Best,
Robert A. Franco
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