Two things struck me about this
story.
Firstly, it’s well known now that HIV+ individuals can lead long and healthy
lives. What I was less aware of is the fact that the same is true of people
with Aids. The woman in the story had Aids as long ago as 1991, and is still
going strong. Good for her!
But how come she’s going strong? Here’s a datapoint for you: her health insurance
premiums are now $29,000 per year. Yowzers!
The central dilemma of healthcare is that as technology improves, ever more
diseases can be treated and/or cured – at ever greater cost. What happens
when those costs become unmanageable? Obviously, people will end up not getting
the best available care. But does this mean that the USA and Europe will go
the way of Africa – being theoretically able to treat Aids, but in practice
unable to afford to do so?
It seems to me that Life Partners could’ve used some reinsurance just in case people started living longer with AIDS. As it is, she won big on her gamble, and so long as the company has assets they should be going towards paying her premiums (and maybe reinsuring the policy in case she lives to age 80).
Surely there are enough non-lucky AIDS patients to have let them build up some elbow room, in any case. I’m hopeful that in the long run (although not necessarily in my lifetime), a good result will be available far enough from the cutting edge of AIDS treatments that costs will come in line with what is affordable.