Who should have health insurance and why is a matter of intense debate in this country. Some people believe that only those who can afford to purchase insurance should have it. Others think that it is an absolute right of every American. And many people, depending on their own situation, fall somewhere in between these two views. But is this the health care debate we should be having?

Conservative Segregated Health Insurance

Two weeks ago Speaker of the House of Representatives, Paul Ryan, proposed putting people with preexisting medical conditions in state-run high-risk pools. A tried and miserably failed "solution" for people insurance companies don't want to insure adequately, if at all. Ryan wants to segregate those with high cost medical care expenses from those with little to no cost. That means the healthy and mostly younger crowd will pay a lot less for their health insurance and the unhealthy and mostly older people will pay a lot more, or go without coverage.

Progressive Segregated Health Insurance

This week, Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, proposed allowing individuals as young as 50 to buy-in to Medicare. A never tried but often discussed plan that would help those who are not quite old enough for Medicare, ineligible for Medicaid, but can't afford private insurance coverage, if not provided by an employer.

Private Insurer Segregated Health Insurance

And it’s not just politicians that want to segregate the health insurance market more than it already is, private companies want a piece of the action too. Zoom+, a medical and dental care provider and, more recently, health insurance company, targets well-off millennials for their services and plans. Zoom claims millennials are an underserved market but the fact that they do not accept Medicare or Medicaid patients in their practice proves the real reason behind their youthful approach to health insurance is money. Millennials, on average, don’t need as much medical costly medical care as Medicare and Medicaid enrollees do. And Zoom+ is just one of several insurers try to carve out the millennial crowd.

All of these proposals and approaches to providing access to health insurance and health care are wrong. It’s a fact that health insurance works best when all of our risks are pooled together. That’s how insurance works. We balance out each other. Sure, I hate paying thousands of dollars each year in health insurance premiums for coverage I don’t use, but that doesn’t mean I want to be in a smaller group with one or two once-healthy people who no longer are healthy. Because my small group would get real expensive, real quick…

Employer Segregated Health Insurance

Segregated health insurance based on health or age is stupid and wrong, which brings me to the biggest segregator of them all—employers. By sponsoring workplace health insurance, employers separate some of the wealthier and healthier Americans from the rest of us who buy health insurance on our own. This makes our pool smaller and more expensive. And, they don’t have to cover the elderly or poor because Medicare and Medicaid will. So where’s the demographic diversity among employer insureds?

One pool of insureds is what we need to level out the cost of health insurance, and then we can tackle the outrageous, indefensible prices of medical care. It’s wrong for employers to stand in the way of bringing us all together to tackle the health care cost problem.

Tags: health care