“‘The state’s largest for-profit health insurer is asking California physicians to look for conditions it can use to cancel their new patients’ medical coverage,’ said the first line of an expose in the Los Angeles Times earlier this month. The subject was Blue Cross’ practice of enlisting doctors to help them deny the claims of sick individuals. … But Blue Cross officials weren’t doing anything wrong. They were doing exactly what we’ve asked them to do: They were following the incentives of the modern insurance market. It’s a common complaint that health insurers don’t actually offer ‘insurance.’ As generally defined, insurance is a form of risk management that individuals use to protect themselves against unpredictable loss — a car accident, say, or a house fire. Health insurance, by contrast, is a form of risk pooling that individuals use to smooth out lifetime healthcare costs. Heath insurance does not insure us against risks so much as it insulates us against costs.” [editor’s note: A point we have made repeatedly on these pages, and we’re hardly the only ones - SAT] (02/27/08)