Who's zooming carrying who?

I missed the president's parade of tv shows this morning, but I do have to comment on this:

“For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase,” Mr. Obama said. “What it’s saying is that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for anymore.”

It's a convenient scapegoat, and an easy target, to blame the healthcare cost mess on the uninsured, but it's simply not true that's what driving costs. It's the insured who get MRI's for every headache (don't laugh; I had a coworker once who disappeared from the office several times to do just that. Non-profit -- cheap insurance, so why not?)

That myth about: but if you're uninsured, we'll pay if you get hit by a bus. Nope. Again, I'm guessing you'd have a pretty good lawsuit against that bus that hit ya.

Ditto car accidents. Either your ER visit is covered under your own car insurance PIP (personal injury protection) policy if it's your fault (up those coverages if you don't carry health insurance and accidents, not illness, are your greatest health risk); or else your bills will be covered by the other driver's liability insurance if it's their fault. (And carry uninsured/underinsured coverage too, in case you get hit by someone driving without, either a license, insurance or other papers.)

Otherwise, stay healthy (wash your hands, drink plenty of water, get enough sleep) and pay out-of-pocket if you need an office visit (very inexpensive at those Wal-Mart clinics, I hear, and most generic drugs are only $4.)

Some argue women need health insurance, for fertility reasons. Nonsense. If you can't be celibate, condoms can be purchased without a prescription, and used correctly, are the most common contraceptive for preventing both pregnancy, and VD's. What are they? Less than $5 a pack?

The hundreds spent monthly by those insureds who never use their insurance plans, and who have money set aside to cover any bills that might occur, go toward paying for those above-mentioned MRIs, those at the height of the childrearing who incur related hospital costs, and those whose bills will run sky-high if there is to be no screening for pre-existing conditions, and no monetary limitations on how much the contractual policy will pay out.

You want a recipe for uncontrolled health costs, with no incentive to tamp down growing consumer demands (MRI today for my headache please; some antibiotics again this month for the sniffles) -- well, there it is right there.

I'm skeptical that once passed, only THEN will we begin to confront fraud and waste in the system. How about: shelve this unpopular mandate today; begin showing us the savings on fraud and waste, and THEN and only then, come to the American people insisting that everybody get in on this game.

I've been insured plenty of times. As a single woman who practices preventative maintenance, I never ever took out close to what I paid in premiums. As a careful person, I just don't go around taking risks that might end up in broken bones or other accidents. And I have enough to pay my medical bills, should I need out of pocket treatment.

For those few who gamble and lose, well -- they should take their losses then. They SHOULD have medical bills hanging over their heads (and their family's heads if they have family) if they run up costs with no way of paying for them. Pay on the payment plan; hold a benefit if necessary; borrow from other family members if needed to pay for medical treatment; if necessary, yes, declare bankruptcy.

Hold people accountable for their bills, and THEN you'll have a convincing argument about the need for health insurance.

Don't assume that all the uninsureds are running up bills and skipping out on them though. Few are, few do. If they choose to treat minimally, and find the money saved on premiums that subsidize co-workers' (and their families') care, can be better spent on their own lifestyle -- good food, healthy environments, exercise programs/equipment/fees, therapeutic massage, travel, education, savings for the minimal medical bills incurred, that's their choice.

Remember the days when we presumed that individuals could best provide for their own needs and plan for their own futures? When we held those responsible for incurring the costs to have some plan to pay for them?

What we have here today is the exact opposite: Government as the Know-It-All with a one-plan-fits-all solution that will be imposed on all of us, whether we need their solution or not.

That's why you see such passion now in those opposing such a plan (remember, it happened to the white Hillary Clinton, just as you're hearing opposition now to the black President Obama. It's really not about race, people.* It's about CHOICE and an effective plan to curb those skyrocketing costs, without shifting the burden to innocent others who are not even receiving medical care for their premiums.)

Hold people accountable for their own choices and bills. Period. If insurance helps, then persuade them to carry it. Or let them decide to invest in their own health needs as they see fit. And again, then hold them to the consequences of their choices, even if they are the 1 in 100 that gambles wrongly. (see above).

That's how you'll rein in the currently unpaid costs, and have people self-ration their care: ie/ "do I really need another MRI, if it will affect my premiums and I'm paying for it myself?" or "Maybe hon, if we can't afford insurance premiums or to pay off our childbirth expenses on the payment plan -- remember Bobby Jindal's father? -- then we'd better hold off on having another child. They only get more expensive after the childbirth costs, afterall, and we can't expect others to continue carrying us and paying for our family needs via taxes in this economy, afterall...")

Something tells me if you force the young and healthy who currently don't treat into even a $100/mo premium plan, they're going to start seeing a doctor for the sniffles too. Insurance, and not paying premiums based on medical history or individual assessment as we do automobile drivers, is what helped cause this mess. No responsibility if you can push your bills off on others in the pool who don't have as great medical needs. Why worry about costs if somebody else is footing the bill?

And yet some think we continue to treat all persons as if their medical needs are the same ... really, they honestly think that will work? Honestly?

Finally, if anybody tells you a poorly planned bill is better than no bill at all, that we have to get something passed, no matter how compromised, because the sky is falling and non-insureds are dropping dead by the dozens ... chances are, they feel guilty about what they have, but instead of contributing their excess money to charities designed to help the non-insured poor who lose their gamble and are facing overwhelming needed medical care, they'd prefer to curtail the choices of healthy others, who are not part of the problem and who want no part of the collective solution.

Btw, I hear there is a religious opt-out** on the mandatory nature of being forced into a pool with others whose medical values you don't share, and whose procedures and treatments you never would incur yourself. Believe it or not, because of bodily integrity issues, not everyone incurs thousands of dollars in bills in their final days, not everyone would authorize amputating the leg of aged diabetics (themselves) because despite the medical advice, not everybody chooses the same.

If you treat minimally, and prefer to put your faith somewhere other than the latest cutting edge medical treatment that so often proves ... more troublesome than beneficial (hormonal treatments for menopause contributing to breast cancer, ladies?), then why the heck should you be on the line for those treatments chosen by others?

There's that old saying: Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining. It's true here too: Don't expect me to pay the costs of other people's medical bills, while carrying my own weight with my own healthcare needs, and then tell me what "a burden to the system" I am.

You'd think with all I've paid in premiums over the years without taking out myself, a little thanks might be in order. And an understanding of why I've structured my healthcare investments the way I have.

In fact, you just might learn a little something from the conservative, risk averse, minimal treaters like myself. Because how the heck can you ever craft a comprehensive solution to what we all agree is a big financial mess, if you've misidentified the cause of the problem in the first place, and are just slapping short-term bandaids -- and blank checks -- on a failing system ?

Riddle me that.




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* You know you're in a pretty bad spot when you have to count on former President Jimmy Carter to defend you.

** I wonder how many unpaid medical bills the Amish community racks up, for example?