I'll Take 10 Pounds of Baked Beans...and Health Insurance

Costco is always looking for new products and services that it can offer to its members. Everytime I walk into one of their warehouses I find new stuff that I just have to have. I may have to start going to a recovery group.

Their latest foray will probably be as successful as most of the other things they do: health insurance (h/t Hugh Hewitt):

Costco Wholesale Corp., the low-cost bulk supplier of breakfast cereal, motor oil and diamond rings, is adding health insurance to its warehouse shelves.

In a pilot program to be launched next month in Southern California, Costco will offer family and individual coverage to its customers who pay $100 a year for "executive" membership, company officials said. The insurance is aimed at people such as contractors, waiters and students who are self-employed or cannot sign up for plans at work.

Although other discount stores such as Wal-Mart and Target have begun offering limited health services in their stores, Costco says it will be the first to offer insurance to members. About 18 million households nationally belong to Costco, including 3.4 million who pay for executive membership.

Company officials would not quote premiums but said the insurance would be 5% to 20% cheaper than policies individuals could buy on their own. Costco expects to offer coverage statewide by the end of the year and may eventually make it available to regular members, said Dellanie Fragnoli, assistant vice president of insurance services at Issaquah, Wash.-based Costco.

"It's one of the more requested services by our members," Fragnoli said.

This is a great idea. Many of their customers are small businesses or individuals who have a tough time finding health coverage at reasonable costs. By pooling a bunch of people into a large group, they can get large group rates which is reduce everyone's individual costs.

In other health care news, the Canadian Supreme Court struck down a law that prevented private competition with the official government single-payor health care plan. The court found that the single-payor system "put people's lives at risk while increasing the suffering of others" (h/t Hugh Hewitt).

Of course, the Canadian system has been held up by the Dems as the example of all that is good and holy in health care, and the system that was once proposed for the U.S. by Hillary Clinton. Here's how the article describes the court's decision:

The high court ruled that the long delays for patients, lack of doctors and other problems have put Canadians' health at risk and that the government could not ban citizens from seeking private care if it could not guarantee treatment in a timely and reliable way. The decision will allow patients to seek private care outside the national system, stirring fears that doctors will leave the national plan to go into more lucrative private practice and create a two-tier system that benefits the rich.

There go those crummy rich people again, daring to go outside the government-blessed system to save their lives. Don't they know they should suffer and die like everyone else?

The Canadian system is typical of what happens when you put the government in charge and take all the profit out. You get poor quality, no service, and in general a "who cares" attitude among the providers. Competition is good for everybody, whether in health care or auto racing (I only wrote that last line so John would have something to write about).