Dictator To Phase Out Health Insurance In Thailand

[Antonymous]

There have been many threads on TV about whether or not people should have health insurance and the costs involved. I have health insurance but I have never made a claim on it. Yet my premiums increase drastically every year. And as most insured TV members pay much higher premiums than I do, it seems, I’m sure you’ll have some views on the subject of change.

 

I think the current system is all wrong. If I were in control of the country and had the power to do so (as a benevolent dictator perhaps), I’d instigate comprehensive structural reform to do this.

 

The reasons that health insurance premiums are so high and continue to increase well above the rate of inflation year on year are basically twofold:

 

1. Those with insurance cover tend to USE their insurance because they feel able to take more risks with their health and/or go for unnecessary treatments to get ‘value-for-money’ from their premium payments. I bet you too know people who deliberately use up or exceed the cost of their insurance premiums each year as a matter of course, as if it is their right.

 

2. Doctors and hospitals tend to PRESCRIBE more medication and services to those who are insured, because they are in business to make money.

 

So my simple answer…

 

If you want to have both a healthier population and healthcare at affordable prices, then you have to scrap health insurance cover for avoidable conditions. That’s most conditions – a statement only controversial because pharmaceutical businesses dispute it and ignorant or willful individuals won’t accept it.

 

Accidental injuries and trauma care and a well-defined limited number of non-avoidable conditions could still be insured against.

 

By phasing out all other health insurance cover over time, people would either have to pay for their own medical care, or have to adjust their diet and lifestyle to make healthier choices, thereby eventually living their lives without any pharmaceutical drugs or the need for hospital services - as I do now.

 

Those who could afford to get sick and couldn’t care less, would be free to continue to indulge themselves in non-healthy options. There would be no law against it. It would be their choice and when they do inevitably fall ill, the costs of their care would not become a burden on everyone else who made healthier choices, as is the case with the prevailing insurance system.

 

Instead of automatically prescribing lifelong medication for high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes, for example, and most other unnecessary expensive drugs, doctors would instead need to study their patients’ physiological, environmental  and mental status and histories and recommend diet and lifestyle changes accordingly. We are already living in an age where artificial intelligence can do this without even needing to see a doctor. A little tweaking of the technology and more advanced databases could make this a universally effective system, available to everybody cheaply.

 

“Lose weight you fat bastard” spoken by a caring AI (a non-PC PC), could soon replace: “You’ll need to take these three pills every day for the rest of your life and perhaps try to cut down a little bit on alcohol and candy if you can”, spoken by an uncaring human doctor.

 

Other beneficial changes in society would occur naturally. Under my benevolent dictatorship demand for healthy food would increase, while demand for unhealthy foods would decrease, forcing a change in agricultural practices that would eventually eliminate the use of toxins to grow crops and to pump into animals. That part I’d probably make law.

 

Likewise food processing companies would be forced to cut down on the use of chemicals, sugars and other toxic substances and to provide more healthy choices. That would come about through consumer demand.

 

What do you think? Should I register a new party for the February elections? Would you vote for me? Should I just instigate a coup anyway?