When people have been polled if they like their current insurance most people say they are satisfied.  Some truly are but here are some reasons those satisfaction ratings are so high and perhaps shouldn’t be.

Also see the post about why people don’t like their current health care coverage.

  1. They have insurance which “they believe” will take care of them and their loved ones if they get sick.
  2. Their employers pay most of its cost.
  3. The plan benefits are designed to make most users satisfied.
  4. They have not needed it.
  5. Most users do not have that much in medical costs each year so insurance generally seems to pay for their care and work well.
  6. People do not generally understand or know the coverage limits or problems with their plan’s design.
  7. People are glad to have insurance and unless they are having a problem with it the think it’s good even if it isn’t really a good plan.
  8. Most people assume they will be covered more than they actually are.
  9. The insurance industry and employers have a vested interest in overselling the protection and value of the plans and so employees are generally ill informed.
  10. Most people don’t read their coverage and many that do don’t understand what they are reading or its implications.
  11. The exclusions to coverage are often presented in dense, small text and is hard to read.
  12. Most people use only a few parts of, and only a limited amount of, their coverage so they don’t see the problems.
  13. Satisfaction statistics are often misleading.  For example: If 80% of people don’t use coverage, they will say they are happy with it not because it is good but because they have no experience to say it isn’t.  The universe of people who use a benefit are the only ones capable of rating it.  If 80 people don’t use it, 20 do and 10 don’t like it, the statistic says 90% are happy..No… Only 50% are happy and 80% just have no experience to base a judgment.
  14. Only a portion of people overrun their benefits and learn their true coverage limits and exposure.
  15. Those who have been lucky enough to have coverage enough to cover their needs so far.

Luckily some of the problems above will be fixed by ObamaCare.