[DISCARDED] Assurance in Insurance

[Jutsa]

This one's my wack at an insurance issue for nations without insurance,
going about health insurance rather than property insurance.

(one of the major differences being we have the universal healthcare policy at play)

Er... help with effect lines would be welcome.

Title: Assurance in Insurance
The Issue: People have been having trouble paying for their hospital bills due to the deficit of any kind of readily available health insurance. With doctors earning less and healthy people being obviously wealthier, you've agreed to a meeting to discuss health insurance plans.
Validity: Must NOT have universal healthcare; Must have a very small(or no) insurance industry; Must not have AI-controlled economy (this'd look VERY different)

Validity: Capitalist
Option 1a: "It's a bloody racket, I tells ya. I can't even keep me own family supported, let alone cover the turbulent costs of me misses' surgery," weeps local government worker @@RANDOMMALENAME@@, pecking away at a broken pocket watch. "If a workin' man can't even earn enough to cover a fraction the costs, then the state ought'a pay it off for us, yeh? I'm sure the populace would be alright payin' a few extra tax @@CURRENCYPLURAL@@ for some sort of universal health coverage if it saved 'em the burden of choosin' between goin' broke or goin' six feet undah all 'cause of a few ski accidents."
[effect] ???
[Flag Change] Universal Healthcare

Validity: Socialist
Option 1b: "It's a bloody racket, I tells ya. I can't even keep me own family supported, let alone cover the turbulent costs of me misses' surgery," weeps local government worker @@RANDOMMALENAME@@, pecking away at a broken pocket watch. "If a workin' man can't even earn enough to cover a fraction the costs, then the state ought'a pay it off for us, yeh? The state already supplies the doctors; why can't it also supply the bill? After all, aren't we all equal, comrade @@LEADER@@? Shouldn't we be treated that way, ratha than broke 'cause of a few @@DEMONYMADJECTIVE@@ Roulette accidents?"
[effect] ???
[Flag Change] Universal Healthcare

Validity: Capitalist
Option 2a: "I think the real question is this: where are all the insurance companies?" inquires @@RANDOMNAME@@, from a healthy and wealthy family, setting up a small insurance stand in front of your desk. "Insurance provides people a choice, and companies could compete with one another to drive down the prices. But for some reason, insurance markets can't seem to get off the ground in @@NAME@@. With a little government promotion, maybe a few subsidies to new insurance companies, and a few less business regulations, we could make insurance a booming part of our economy! It's win-win for everyone, except those who don't get insurance, but... whatever! Their lives, their choice."
[effect] ???

Validity: Socialist
Option 2b: "I think the real question is this: where are all the insurance firms?" inquires @@RANDOMNAME_2@@, from a healthy and equally wealthy family, setting up a small insurance stand in front of your desk. "Insurance provides people a choice, and sectors could compete with one another to drive down the prices. 'But @@FIRSTNAME_2@@', you ask, 'how is this possible without private enterprise?' I'm glad you asked! With a little government promotion of competition between our newly established firms, and a few special grants to the best providers, we could make insurance a booming part of our glorious mother economy! It's win-win for everyone, except those who don't get insurance, but... whatever! Their lives, their choice."
[effect] ???

Option 3: "If ya can't afford the costs of living, then it's a sign that yer not working hard enough," fumes your janitor, aggressively cleaning your carpet. "Best stamp out what little insurance we've got. Let 'em broke freeloaders stay at home and say their prayers. No use to society anyway. Besides, insurance is gambling, and I hate gambling. I hate gambling with the passion of a thousand red-hot suns." @@HE@@ begins taking down the insurance stand.
[effect] it's a gamble whether one can get a doctor

Title: Assurance in Insurance
The Issue: People have been having trouble paying for their hospital bills, and the hospitals have had to bump their prices to compensate for this. The lack of any reliable insurance has proven quite difficult for many to cope with.
Validity: Must NOT have universal healthcare; Must have a very small(or no) insurance industry; Must not have AI-controlled economy (this'd look VERY different)

Option 1: "It's a bloody racket, I tells ya. I can't even keep me own family supported, let alone cover the turbulent costs of me misses' surgery," weeps local government worker @@RANDOMMALENAME@@, pecking away at a broken pocket watch. "If a workin' man can't even earn enough to cover a fraction the costs, then the state ought'a pay it off for us, yeh? I'm sure the populace would be alright payin' a few extra tax @@CURRENCYPLURAL@@ for some sort of universal health coverage if it saved 'em the burden of choosin' between goin' broke or goin' six feet undah."
[effect] ???

Validity: Capitalist
Option 2a: "Why make us taxpayers suffer when you could have insurance companies?" inquires @@RANDOMNAME_2@@, from a healthy and wealthy family, setting up a small insurance stand in front of your desk. "This way people have a choice, and insurance companies can compete with one another to drive down the prices. 'But @@FIRSTNAME_2@@', you ask, 'how is this possible if there's no insurance business around?' I'm glad you asked! With a little government promotion, and maybe a few subsidies to new insurance companies, we could make it a booming part of our economy! It's win-win for everyone, except those who don't get insurance, but... whatever! Their lives, their choice."
[effect] ???

Validity: Socialist
Option 2b: "Why make us taxpayers suffer when you could promote self-sustaining insurance firms?" inquires @@RANDOMNAME_2@@, from a healthy and equally wealthy family, setting up a small insurance stand in front of your desk. "This way people have a choice, and insurance sectors can compete with one another to drive down the prices. 'But @@FIRSTNAME_2@@', you ask, 'how is this possible without private enterprise?' I'm glad you asked! With a little government promotion of competition between our newly established firms, and give special grants to the best providers, we could make insurance a booming part of our glorious mother economy! It's win-win for everyone, except those who don't get insurance, but... whatever! Their lives, their choice."
[effect] ???

Option 3: "If ya can't afford the costs of living, then it's a sign that yer not working hard enough," fumes your janitor, aggressively cleaning your carpet. "Best stamp out what little insurance we've got. Let 'em broke freeloaders stay at home and say their prayers. No use to society anyway. Besides, insurance is gambling, and I hate gambling. I hate gambling with the passion of a thousand red hot suns." @@HE@@ begins taking down the insurance stand.
[effect] it's a gamble whether one can get a doctor

[Australian rePublic]

Option 1- doesn't family insurance cover the wife?

[The Free Joy State]

I like this idea, Jutsa. Nice niche issue.

No suggestions for effect lines at this time, just praise for the idea.

If people are having trouble paying their hospital bills, I could suggest making it more niche by adding to the validity: medium to low income of the poor (if poor incomes are high, I think this would be less of a problem)

[Candlewhisper Archive]

Interesting! I appreciate the attempt here, but I'm not personally convinced that this has verisimilitude in describing the real life forces that drive hospital treatment pricing strategies. In a free market, one does not respond to customers being unable to afford your services by raising the price of services. There's always an optimum profit point where supply intersects demand, and if you raise prices when demand is low, you'll simply reduce profits further. Likewise, in the absence of public heathcare in a capitalist economy, the government doesn't have to take action to encourage health insurance to appear - that will happen all by itself!

My understanding is that IRL, the problems that people have in affording hospital bills are largely due to the pricing structures being led by an insurance-driven market system, with self-funding individuals priced out as a result.

That is, the hospitals in a free market system charge as much as the insurance companies will bear to pay while competition between hospitals acts as a check in prices, and the insurance companies charge their policy-holders as much as that market will bear, and that works, in the sense that the patient gets healthcare in exchange for premiums they are willing to pay, but the downfall comes when uninsured individuals find that price of treatment is vastly inflated above cost of treatment by those market forces.

Of course, there's also upsides to market-driven healthcare. Complex issue, for sure.

[Jutsa]

Hopefully not too complex to handle.

I wholeheartedly agree that irl, insurance would pop up naturally, but alas, this is NS, and we know that lots of nations just have basketcase insurance.
(My own included, though admittedly I have universal healthcare)

Definitely, the description shall be changed to better reflect irl, but admittedly this is a complex and wacky issue for nations that,
to my knowledge, don't exist much irl, but would exist pretty often in NS.

Glad you two are interested, though. I'll be sure to make this one slightly more niche as well, Joy.

@Aussie: Nope, hence the point of this draft; it's for nations with basically no health insurance, whatsoever.

[Chan Island]

Neat! I've heard vaguely about the problems of hospitals bumping prices on a similar thing, but it's that US hospitals have to treat people who have gone through some horrible accident or sudden crisis- even when they don't have insurance.

It might be better to focus more on the lack of a viable insurance industry.

Don't know, but do work on this one! It's a unique idea, and it deserves to be shaped into something worthy of the game!

[Jutsa]

lol, thanks.

It's... definitely going to need a lot of collaborative teamwork, though.
A premise like this needs to be just right, and any help I can get.

[Jutsa]

Soo, I did a few things. For starters, I changed the description a bit to hopefully highlight that it's a lack of insurance that's the issue.
I also tried injecting a tiny bit of humor into option 1, and then proceeded to make a communist variant of it.

I also made option 2a/2b (but really 2a) ask where the insurance companies are.
2b's kinda obvious since, y'know, socialism; no companies, you have to make the move.
2a's been altered, however, to blame regulations and lack of publicity. (at least, hopefully it's doing that now.)

Again, this issue probably wouldn't even come up irl, and I doubt communist nations would even really have insurance firms,
but such is the world of NationStates; a land where both are possible and commonplace. >_<

[Jutsa]

Bump, I suppose.

Normally if there wasn't much feedback, I'd consider submitting it sooner,
but I'd really like to play this draft safe, so unless this gets a green light,
or a red light, I'll probably keep this one up for another week or two.

[Candlewhisper Archive]

I'm still not totally sold on the premise, I think.

So basically we're saying that in the absence of public health AND the absence of insurance industry, people's health is suffering?

I don't think that rings true - if the demand for healthcare is there and the supply is absent, then market mechanisms will create that supply spontaneously. Either the insurance industry will see a profit opportunity and step in, or the market will provide some alternate form of healthcare provision.

For sure, in Nationstates, that won't happen, as in Nationstates (unlike real life) the market never responds to supply and demand. However, all this issue does is point out that simulation deficit, which challenges it's own verisimilitude as an issue, and also undermines the suspension of disbelief of the whole game.

I think that while there's dilemmas to be posed around private healthcare and insurance, this one doesn't work as written.

[Jutsa]

Fair enough. I'll take that as a mostly-red-but-a-spot-of-orange light then.

As such, I shall proceed to close this draft. I will gladly link it to anyone else wanting to tackle something like this.
(If I can ever find it using the search, of course.)