A year after his election, President Trump still hasn’t gotten through his campaign promise of the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare.

Healthcare finance is a complex subject, and I’m not qualified to pontificate on it. However, I wonder if the holdup is the insurance aspect. I understand the benefits of having health insurance. However, I maintain a high deductible healthcare plan and a health savings account instead of expecting my healthcare insurance to pay for everything.

Are we addicted to healthcare insurance? Do we expect too much out of healthcare insurance? Healthcare insurance hasn’t been around that long, but there was a time when there was no healthcare insurance. Healthcare providers simply financed a patient’s bill for them. What if we eliminated healthcare insurance altogether?

Let’s face it: the insurance aspect of this problem lies at its heart. Insurance is, like it or not, legalized gambling. Insureds want as much covered as possible, while insurers maximize profits by taking in premiums and denying or delaying the payment of claims and payments to healthcare providers. I maintain that the interposition of healthcare insurance is what really causes healthcare costs to soar.

It seems to me that the debate over issues such as single payer and preexisting conditions begs the real question, which is whether we even need healthcare insurance at all. Politically, healthcare insurance companies are strong and are assisted by powerful lobbyists, so I doubt that you see much change there. However, I predict that more doctors will get off of the healthcare insurance hamster wheel.