Here’s why you buy insurance before you need it
When your house is on fire, it’s too late to buy fire insurance:
If Senator John McCain’s radical plan for remaking American health care is to work, he will have to find a way to cover people like Chaim Benamor, 52, a self-employed renovator in this Baltimore suburb. Mr. Benamor never found it necessary to buy insurance before having a mild heart attack last year and now, 13 years shy of Medicare, has little hope of doing so.
The heart attack left Mr. Benamor with a $17,000 hospital bill, $400 in monthly prescription costs and a desperate need for insurance.
No, Mr. Benamor does not need insurance. He needs help paying his bills.
Insurance, properly understood, is a gamble. It reflects risk-taking by both the policy carrier and the policy holder. If the filing of a claim is certain, rather than merely possible, you don’t have a gamble. Instead, you have either a case of fraud or a need for charity.