If you want a plan that covers asthma medicine you should be able to buy a plan that has that.

If I don't want a plan that covers asthma medicine I should be able to buy that.

Right now I am forced to have a plan that covers things that I don't want. I used to have a plan that did not cover any prescription drugs. I liked that plan. I didn't get to keep that plan.

Insurance works when I make a deal with an insurance company and buy the plan I think is right for me.

When I am forced to buy a plan that must subsidize someone else's shit that's a tax. That's not insurance.

And that's what the Supreme Court ruled.

getcereal just opened a can of whoop ass on eb. Well done.

You need to check your math.

0.31% US
0.17% CA

Assuming the numbers are correct, and there are no uninsured.

Serious question...

Why should someone else be forced to subsidize your asthma medicine? That is what's really happening here. And if push comes to shove and, say, Duffy refuses to pay his portion of your asthma medicine the Duffy will get a fine. If Duffy refuses to pay the fine, eventually Duffy will be arrested and if Duffy resists arrest violence will be committed upon him, up to and including lethal violence if necessary.

So why should I be forced by (ultimately) the threat of government sanctioned violence to pay for your asthma medicine?

Well any insurance coverage makes it someone else's problem at least to some degree. We're just arguing the balance between what's born by the individual with the problem, their immediate family, others in their insurance risk pool, state government, and Federal government.

It's complicated.

Terrific. What you're advocating is still not feasible. YOU may be able to adequately evaluate your own risk profile and make a good deal with the insurance company. But that is not the norm. If everyone only got coverage for what they think they needed - everyone would have inadequate coverage in the likely event of an unexpected medical event. Consequently, lots of people would be defaulting on unexpected bills for shit they chose not to purchase coverage for (because...FREEDOM!). Then the finance guys at hospitals (like me, got me a new job as a director ;) would shift the cost of bad debt (idiot debt, in my opinion) onto insurance companies via increasing the charges for covered procedures.

Long story short - your custom coverage that doesn't include my asthma coverage would still pay for it by charging 1000x the hospital's cost for whatever procedures you DO choose to cover. It's a purdy dream you got but it's bologna. The more fractured the risk pool the less efficient the risk transfer the higher the average cost to individual users.

One of the reasons insurance seemed affordable pre-ACA is that the policies were shit (annual & lifetime caps) and insurance companies dropped sick people. Those would eventually run out of money and options and land on Medicaid. Fuck me that's an idiotic reimbursement mechanism. But the dumb setup means I get paid a lot of money to deal with this shit. Good luck finding "good" insurance that does whatever you dream it should in case some competent conservatives take over and do whatever they've been promising to do for 7 years.