Are insurance companies open to the option of paying someone not to receive treatment for a terminal illness that would have cost them a lot of money to treat?
no
To expand, that would be exactly how you’d end up with ‘death panels’. What they’d be much more likely to do is lobby the government to go back to pre-ACA and allow insurance companies to not take on people with certain pre-existing conditions and find a way to either drop people that had certain diseases (who then wouldn’t be able to get new insurance) or have a lowish lifetime payout. Maybe somewhere in the million dollar range.
It’s an interesting concept. An 85 year old individual with terminal disease can add a year to his life with costly treatment that his insurance would cover. The insurance company offers 75% of what they’d pay as a cash payment and in exchange the individual forgoes care. Alternatively, the individual approaches his insurer with the offer.
I feel like that would encourage people to get sick. Think about how many people might pick up bad habits specifically knowing that if they get cirrhosis or cancer or Hepatitis or AIDS they could get a nice cash payout to give to their kids. I assume if someone received that cash payout, they’d the insurance company would either drop them or have some sort of clause stating that they won’t make any payments for any treatment or medication related to that disease. The question then becomes, what happens when the pain gets so bad the person shows up in the hospital just asking for some relief? Can the hospital get them on morphine? Can they treat the person for the disease? Are they forced to turn them away with no help at all?
I don’t see something like this as a good idea, but if it was implemented, I think doctor assisted suicide would have to be made legal and the insurance company would have to cover it.
Also, remember, if you’re young enough that you still have private/marketplace insurance, you could simply cancel it. No, it’s not a half million dollar payout, but it would certainly save you a few thousand dollars (or more) a year.
In my scenario the insurance company would handle pain management. I was thinking more like 30% of projected costs.
Kind of like the reverse mortgage where the elderly homeowner continues inhabiting the home, and occasionally lives “too long”.
The documentary How to Die in Oregon followed the cases of several terminally ill people in Oregon, where medically assisted death is legal. In one case, a man had applied to the state’s Health Plan for prostate cancer treatment; the plan included a long-standing policy under which they refused to pay for treatment since he had less than a 5% chance of surviving five years, but it did offer to pay for hospice/palliative care and/or a medically-assisted death.
If someone wants to take this gamble, it’s probably a better idea to drop the health insurance altogether and just get a life insurance policy instead.
DOC: Inigo, you’re hosed and there’s pretty much no chance you’ll be getting well. Time to balance your checkbook because you’ll be dead in 12 months.
INIGO: I has a sad. But Imma fight dis!
BC/BS: Heeeeeyyy there lil buddy. Look, DOC is right, you’re FUBAR and there nothing all the treatment in the world can do for you. Tell you what, here’s 60% of what all that wasted treatment would cost. Get right, have a nice day.
INIGO: Time to become a medical tourist
In a sense they do. If you choose hospice, and a physician agrees that you will probably die within six months, insurance companies will pick up the complete cost of care. That’s because under hospice, treatments to prolong life stop and the whole focus is on making patients comfortable. That is way cheaper than end-of-life care which tends to be invasive, often painful, useless in the end, and terribly expensive.
I’ve been through that with both my wife and my mother. Hospice is a godsend.
Note also that some life insurance policies will give you a reduced payout before you die if you have a terminal illness and request it. Link below to a Kiplinger’s article on the subject.
[URL=“Tapping Life Insurance When You're Terminally Ill | Kiplinger”