My Thoughts on Health Care

The recent release of Michael Moore's movie Sicko has re-ignited the health care debate. With over 46 million Americans without health insurance there is indeed a crisis in health care. Well not in the care itself. America ranks number one in customer satisfaction when it comes to health care. The crisis is in how to pay for it.

In this country health care is paid mainly by private insurance. For many working people their employers provide health insurance for them, either at little or no cost. For the rest of us (I am self-unemployed) we have to pay for health insurance out of our own pockets or go without. I have paid for my own health insurance for many years. At first I paid through a group plan set up for my photography business (which also paid for health insurance for all my employees) and now individually.

When I talk to people without health insurance the biggest complaint (or reason) as to why they don't have it is that it costs too much. They just can't afford it. Well, that may be the case for some (students, the unemployed or people in poor health already). But for most it is not that they cannot afford it, it is that they prefer to spend their dollars elsewhere. For example, I am sixty two years old and pay for my own health insurance. I am in relatively good health (which means I have outlived most of my relatives) and my policy costs the equivalent of about 4 beers a day at the Ice House.

I mention the Ice House because there I see many people who I know do not have health insurance but consume many more than 4 beers a day. If you put the cost in terms of another vice, smoking, the premium on my policy is about 2 packs of cigarettes a day. Lots of 2-pack-a-dayers at the Ice House. The irony of this is that if you stopped smoking 2 packs a day, you probably would not need the insurance as much.

I do believe that affordable health care should be available to all. How we do it I will leave up to the big dogs in Washington. If you would like to see a tongue-in-cheek video on my solution to the situation, click on the following link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbzAzYayz-Q