Health Insurance vs. Other Insurance

This piece by Wayne Dunn asks an interesting question…why is there no auto-insurance crisis?

Is there something special about health insurance that makes it crisis-prone? I mean, we never hear about the horrible "house insurance crisis" or the "spiraling cost of auto insurance."

It wouldn't be too hard to create such a crisis though. In fact, let's try to map one out.

Just imagine if politicians resolved that, since automobiles are vital for getting people to work, companies ought to provide for the care and maintenance of its employees' vehicles.

So political pressure is applied to employers– maybe through the tax code, or perhaps legislation is passed outright; and, before long, auto insurance is restructured to cover not merely accidents, but routine maintenance and service. For a monthly premium and a $10 or $15 "co-pay,"

your car insurance would cover the cost of an oil change, tune up, new tires, whatever it needed.

Something odd would begin happening though. Mechanics would stop hearing the now pervasive, "How much will it cost?"

Why? Because if all you had to do is plop down ten or fifteen bucks and your insurance paid the rest, why would you care what the mechanic charged? Heck, you'd start taking your car in for an oil change every 1000 miles instead of every 3000. Rather than getting your tires rotated, you'd just have new ones put on. And that rear electric window that won't lower, you'd not think twice about having fixed.

Or maybe we could just have nationalized car care…