Archive for February, 2010
A Useless Fact
The average 21 year old has spent 5,000 hours playing video games, has exchanged 250,000 e-mails, instant and text messages and has spent 10,000 hours on the mobile phone.
Frankie Goes Somewhere
A Useless Fact
Ketchup was sold in the 1830's as medicine.
Buddha Says…
The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.
Wrong Answer
A Personal Reflection on “The Healthcare”
As many a dear reader will know, one of the hot topics du jour in the United States is healthcare; health insurance, healthcare funding, healthcare delivery, and so on. Although it may seem like it at times, these issues are not abstract, intellectual theories to be debated ad infinitum. They are real pressing issues that have an impact on you, your family, your neighbors, and yes, even me.
We have cancer in our family. Correction: we have two different species of cancer in our family, two different virulent bastards that only march in one direction, it seems. Detection was relatively early, and treatment has been effective, so there is good news. There is bad news too (over and above the mere fact of diagnosis). One of the consequences of this disease has been that, from the perspective of the insurance company, we have suddenly become radioactive (oh, hey, that was a good one…), dropped from coverage faster than you can say Three Mile Island. The basis upon which that decision was made: pre-existing condition. It’s the same story at every single insurer’s door we knock on. So, we are left without insurance to combat this disease, and we discover very quickly that to do so is a very, very expensive proposition.
There are surgical procedures, consultations, lab work, imaging and medications to be dealt with. This is all flaring up again for me today because yesterday I had occasion to go to the pharmacy to fill a new prescription, something new the doctors want to try. I am open to just about anything really, if it is going to work, and so off I went. One bottle of 30 tablets (take two tablets daily), without insurance, cost $505.00. I nearly had a stroke right there. It’s like that all the time. It never ends.
Now, I know that the reason insurance companies are in business is to collect as much as possible in premiums, pay out as little as possible in claims, and thereby increase profit and dividends for shareholders. I also know it costs a lot these days to develop and bring a new medication to market. We should disabuse ourselves of the notion that healthcare is anything other than an industry for profit. The fact that people get looked after when they are sick or in need of urgent care is a happy byproduct. I would be willing to pay inflated premiums for coverage. It would be cheaper than the present model, and with the rest of the family quite healthy (thank you very much) I bet the insurer would still end up making money on us at the end of the day.
Right, rant over. I guess all I am saying is it would mean a lot to me, personally, if things changed. This is not some abstract, intellectual notion for me. It’s real.
