There’s also mutual aid societies which are nearly the same thing, and get briefly touched on in the “Primal Prescription”. Maybe you can argue that the concept of insurance has changed since then, but the basic idea is still the same. It was government involvement that put these societies out of business as explained on the link above:
A major blow against fraternalism occurred when the American Medical Association gained control of the licensing of medical schools. In 1912, a number of state medical boards formed the Federation of State Medical Boards, which accepted the AMA’s ratings of medical schools as authoritative. The AMA quickly rated many schools as “unacceptable.” Consequentially, the number of medical schools in America dropped from 166 in 1904 to 81 in 1918, a 51 percent drop. The increased price of medical services made it impractical for many lodges to retain the services of a doctor. Medical boards also threatened many doctors with being stripped of their licenses if they practiced lodge medicine.
So in summary they simply cut the supply to drive up prices, which you did mention, but you didn’t say this in the context of an existing operational medical industry, including a form of insurance that predated any regulations.
I disagree that there’s no examples of the free market providing health insurance.
https://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Friendly_society
There’s also mutual aid societies which are nearly the same thing, and get briefly touched on in the “Primal Prescription”. Maybe you can argue that the concept of insurance has changed since then, but the basic idea is still the same. It was government involvement that put these societies out of business as explained on the link above:
So in summary they simply cut the supply to drive up prices, which you did mention, but you didn’t say this in the context of an existing operational medical industry, including a form of insurance that predated any regulations.