How did health insurance begin?
Kaiser was a successful industrialist in California. In order to retain good, highly productive workers he began to provide health care as a fringe benefit. Plus he realized that a healthy worker would be more productive. The popularity of his program created another business for himself. As healthcare costs increased for employers, the idea of managed care (HMO’s) came around. Thus the Kaiser-Permeate health care system evolved. The basis of health insurance is that by having a large number of people pay into a system on a regular basis, there is a pool of money to pay the bills when one member needs medical services. It was like a savings fund for major medical isssues. Some would utilize it a lot, healthier members would save the system money. This became a popular fringe benefit, even at the point of businesses paying all the premium for their employees. The government developed this into Medicare to take care of older (thus retired) workers. However, now we have lost touch with th
