A Healthy Understanding Of Insurance

Insurance is something that most people have and very few really understand. They know that if they pay their insurance premiums that if something happens they have coverage but past that they understand very little about how the entire thing works and even those who have a handle on how car insurance works have little understanding of the health insurance system because most people simply get their health insurance policy through their employer and that is that.

Health insurance, as with most other forms of insurance, is formed by what is known as a collective pool. This is why employer based health insurance has the same cost for each and every individual regardless of their personal health status. When those who are ill combine with those who are sick things tend to balance out.

A pool is a random sampling and it benefits the health insurance companies to have pools because this cuts down their risks and since they charge based on the average they are assured that while some will be using a ton of benefits in the coming year, others will only use a very small percentage. Since the money also goes into a collective pool, however, essentially if you are a person who uses less of your benefits and someone else uses more of theirs then you are paying for some of their benefits as well.

This concept is very basic and is a good way to let everyone enjoy the benefits of top notch affordable health care. The opponents of the health care reform magnify the "us paying more than our fair share for them" argument, but fail to realize that this pretty much sums up what has been taking place in the current health care system already. Because these reform issues are hot buttons for politicians and citizens, the government is trying to add seriously ill people who will no doubt use more of the resources than those who are healthy, to the roster of the insured. But everything should balance out.

Collective pooling in the area of health insurance is really the only way to make sure that everyone receives the coverage that they need. When you look at it while you may be one of the healthier individuals in the pool now, no one really knows what the future may hold and just because you start out on the top of the ladder on serious illness could send you plummeting to the bottom very quickly.