Name the insurance companies in the US that cover this situation and what they cost per month. I’ll wait.

I hope you are not holding your breath as it looks like you are in for a long wait.

If he's actually researching he will probably learn a lot. I can wait.

Right, because markets where there is competition work so well?

I can't think of an insurance company in the US that'd cover this. Can you?

it's a serious stretch to call the US healthcare system an open market in any meaningful sense of the term

Incomplete coverage, no competition, an addiction factory, and an inability to competently address a widespread health emergency. Quad-win!

I’m sure many Americans are now dutifully checking the insurance market to make sure their plan covers this situation.

For that price, one might hope that the company producing it would be willing to provide the drugs as an act of good will (and good advertising!)

No organization without the ability to print money is going to have a policy of paying for experimental healthcare treatments, unless they want to go out of business.

It does suck that there aren't enough people to do proper experimentation for this affliction.

Ofcourse there are - we have private insurance marketin UK, few people need them, many employers provide one.

But then you are paying for both private and public healthcare, so it isn’t really competition.

Given the context in this thread is diversity rather than price, that does not matter.

In Australia at least you can claim a tax rebate if you have private health insurance. I imagine the UK would have a similar system.

The problem I see with that, is that if my private insurance is with my employer, I am making no public contribution while I am healthy but earning money.

Then while I am on pension I am back on the public system, I am making no contribution but using it most.

That would basically be a system designed to bancrupt the public but lucrative for private insurers.

In the UK, private insurance usually requires you to use the public health system as a first stage, and only fall back to the private one for things not covered by the NHS. So you don't get a tax rebate because you are still relying on the public system.

> In the UK, private insurance usually requires you to use the public health system as a first stage, and only fall back to the private one for things not covered by the NHS.

I don't think it is for things "not covered by the NHS". It depends on your level of coverage but typically you would go to the NHS first and then invoke your private coverage when you have a diagnosis in order the eg skip the queue.

When a relative had a heart attack, he was put on a waiting list for a heart bypass - 1 year. When he invoked insurance, he got seen within a month - by the same doctor and in the same facility as it would have been on NHS.

In a lot of instances the private health care system is just paying the public one for advantageous access to services.

Even in cases where you're using a private GP service and theoretically not costing the NHS anything at all; there's no tax rebate.

To be clear though, I'm fine with this - the NHS is for everyone and it should be funded for everyone.

Having private medical insurance does not affect your liability to pay NI like everyone else.

In fact it increases your tax costs, because private insurance provided by e.g. an employer is treated as a BIK.

my epipen isn't even covered in the united states, competitors won't make a difference :)

There are. Private medical care is available in the UK.

If you pay cash; yes. But private health insurance is pretty cheap in the UK because most policies don't have to cover exceptional diseases because they cite that you will be provided care under the NHS.

> Too bad there aren't any NHS competitors.

This comment in a nutshell reveals the ignorance of US consumers. Just because you think something should work the way you want, doesn't mean that's reality.

There is no "health insurance market" in the US, since you can't actually negotiate with any entity in the insurance industry.

Even for most companies, come Jan. 1, they switch providers to the lowest-cost they can find since there is no ability to negotiate with their current provider after the inevitable and compulsory 20%/annum increase.