Ruminations on Health Insurance

With all this hoopla about this Fluke woman ranting that she cannot afford the price of her own contraception, it has become blatantly obvious to me that health insurance is no longer insurance. I always thought that insurance was something that you bought to protect yourself from a catastrophe. Sadly health insurance has morphed into this monster that slowly but surely has convinced perhaps the majority of the population that they no longer have the responsibility of taking care of themselves.

Real health insurance would be just that. It would take care of the policy owner in the event of catastrophic health related expenses. It would not take care of routine stuff like an occasional office visit, a few lab tests, a checkup, or routine prescriptions. Oh I can see I’ve already lost a bunch of you. Pay for my own office visit? Pay for my own medicine? Pay for my birth control pills? How dare you! That should be someone else’s responsibility!

If homeowners insurance was like health insurance, people would expect the insurance company to take care of things like, painting the house, new carpet, the utility bills, furniture…and on and on. Ridiculous isn’t it? Can you imagine how expensive such a thing would be? And true to form the gubment would eventually get involved when enough people bitched about not being able to afford the insurance. Sooner or later there would be gubment provided homeowners insurance funded by the taxpayer. Increasing numbers of people convinced that they were not responsible for their homeowners insurance would get on the gubment dole. Those conservatives that complained about all this nonsense would be labeled as heartless, greedy, racist pigs intent on DENYING ACCESS TO HOUSING to the less fortunate. And thus another entitlement is born.

This is the way health insurance is now. If you can’t afford health insurance, or if your insurance doesn’t pay for birth control pills, Viagra, dildos, or condoms, you are suddenly being denied access to health care. Heaven forbid that you might have to pay for those items yourself.

George W. Bush had the right idea when he floated the notion of health savings accounts. This was and is a great idea. You had a tax advantaged account to which you contributed your own money and from which you could, if you desired, withdraw money to pay for health care. If you didn’t use the money, you enjoyed the same tax protections as you would from an IRA if non-medical withdrawals were made after retirement age. Backing this up was a high deductible catastrophic coverage INSURANCE policy. Sadly, HSA’s were too little and too late I am afraid. None of the Democrats pushed them. Of course not, they wanted everyone to get on the gubment dole and addicted to Obamacare. I heard very few of the Republicans talking about them. I’m not sure why but I would imagine most of them were politically afraid of the suggestion that everyone pay for their own health care. Oh the horror!

I am afraid we have passed the point of no return. More and more people every day think their healthcare is someone else’s responsibility. The lure of the gubment teat is just too strong. Yes, their healthcare is a God given right, never mind someone else has to pay. And day by day the cost of an “insurance” policy spirals out of control as the consumer demands TOTAL CARE from the insurance company.

Gimme! Gimme! Gimmie!

This Fluke woman says her contraception cost her $3000 per year? Last time I looked you could get a month’s supply of birth control pills at Walmart for 4 bucks. Lessee, that ciphers to……..hmmmm…..lessee…..$48 per year. And this woman is supposed to be in law school. I thought you had to pass arithmetic to get in law school. Maybe not. Something stinks.