health plan
what's the best type of health plan? let me try to simultaneously wear both the provider's hat and the consumer's hat to see if we can find some sort of maximum benefit for lowest cost. nothing can be free. otherwise the patient will sign up for treatments they don't need. i figure it's not too hard to budget some amount of money every year for medical costs. this should be the deductible. most years should be under the deductible. but a single year with large medical expenses could easily bust an already strained budget. and then your world of physical hurt puts you in a world of financial hurt. nice double whammy. this is where i expect the health plan to kick in. again it can't pay for everything or the patient will again demand the most expensive treatments. i'm thinking 50/80/20 plan. the provider pays nothing until you hit your deductible. then it pays 50% of everything over the deductible until you hit the 50/80 threshold. then the provider pays 80% of everything until you hit the cap. after which the provider pays only 20%. of course that's just one plan. providers are free to vary terms for whatever people will pay.