Buying your way to better health comes at the expense of others. An increase in private health insurance uptake leads to poorer health in the population over time. Paying for private health services may be beneficial for those who can afford to do so, but it comes at the expense of others.

Buying your way to better health comes at the expense of others

People with private health insurance can jump the public healthcare queue by using private health services instead. Is there really anything wrong with that?

There are two main theories:

If the wealthiest people use private health services more, the public healthcare system will have more capacity for the rest of us.

Private health services divert resources away from the public healthcare system, which consequently becomes worse.

But which one of these theories is most correct?

Researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have been investigating this, and the results are now in.

Public health is deteriorating

“Our findings suggest that an increase in private health insurance uptake leads to poorer health in the population over time,” said Professor Pål Erling Martinussen from the Department of Sociology and Political Science at NTNU.
Private health insurance has become much more common in several European countries over the past few decades. In collaboration with PhD research fellow Oda Nordheim, Martinussen has studied developments in 20 countries during the period 2002–2022. They have used data from over 300,000 people.

Worse for people with the lowest levels of education
“People with a low level of education are more likely to report poor health if they live in a country where uptake of private health insurance has increased,” explained Nordheim.

A lower level of education is often associated with lower income, at least on average. Of course, some people have private health insurance through their jobs. However, the figures show that it is often people with the least financial resilience who are most affected.

Paying for private health services may be beneficial for those who can afford to do so, but it comes at the expense of others.

“The negative health effects on the population as a whole outweigh the benefits that private health insurance provides to individuals,” concluded Martinussen.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168851026000333

Do those using private health insurance have better health outcomes then?

I’m going to provide what’s best for my family over worrying about other families. I think that’s quite normal across all species 

That was always the point.

Private insurance always allowed capitalists to profit off a system that otherwise would have tight margins. Restricting medical services to as few people within a population as possible allows the capitalist to utilize that labor that would go towards “wasted effort” of keeping the whole population healthy, for their own profitable ventures.

The presumption that those that have been controlling how we distribute healthcare services have the general public’s best health and interests in mind has been one of the most horrific and damaging fallacies of the modern era.

The wealthiest? I have to buy private insurance because my husband retired so our employee sponsored insurance is gone. He’s on Medicare but I am too young for Medicare right now.

Is this a misunderstanding on my part, because I am American and this study is Norwegian. Is private insurance a different definition for them?

Sample size of one person who is me.
I can afford private insurance and indeed went that route for awhile. I wasn’t so happy with how I was treated.
I’m a veteran and decided to use the VA on a trial basis.

I’ve found better access to care and actual care at the VA, by far. Several times they have referred me to community care that I would use paying a bunch for private insurance.