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Current Health Insurance Market

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Submitted By secrigel
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Assessment of the Current Health Insurance Market
Health insurance, whether it is private, public or commercial, is a system that distributes the financial burden of medical care among insured members (Austin and Hungerford). To explain how health insurance works, insurance companies first collect premiums from their members and use the funds collected to pay for members’ medical expenses. On one hand, some members may be sick and incur a significant amount of medical expenses. On the other hand, most members will remain relatively healthy and have a small amount of medical expenses. Even though, insurance companies will not know which members will become sick, they are able to calculate the average cost of medical expenses among a large group of members. Insurance companies use the premiums collected from members who are healthy to pay for those who become sick.
Before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, having a health insurance was optional for all Americans. It was mainly the risk-averse consumers who bought health insurance, and these individuals wanted to avoid the financial risks of unpredictable health care expenses by paying a known amount of premium. However, since 2014, people have been penalized for not having health insurance and the fee for not having insurance coverage will be higher every year. Resulting from the healthcare law change, individuals who did not have the health insurance will have more incentives to buy insurance since they will be fined for not having insurance coverage when they file for their income taxes. In addition, they will have insurance coverage if any unexpected event happens. Nevertheless, some people will be willing to pay for the penalty and purchase an insurance when they get sick or are injured since the penalty is less expensive than the premium and insurance companies cannot deny people who have

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