Well, at least in some states the insurance companies are getting wise to the fact that young healthy people who are self-employed aren't putting money into the pot.

I've just gotten a policy from Aetna that's HSA compatible (for as long as that's legal), has a relatively high deductible, and doesn't cover the majority of maintenance stuff.

For around $150/mo. Like you, I was unwilling to pay $300+ per month for an HMO that I wasn't going to use anyhow. However, I have a home now, and I'd like to protect it from the high-cost, low-probability things. Which is what insurance is supposed to be all about.

Now that someone's actually willing to SELL me insurance, I'm buying it.

Of course, it could be all for naught. If Obamacare goes through with its ex post facto provisions on page 16, I'll lose my insurance and be forced to buy something through the government. Which I guarantee you is going to cost me at least twice, and probably three times as much.

Which means I go back to being uninsured, and wait for them to throw me in jail for not paying their stupid fines.

There was an article I read on line the other day that takes on Obama's oft repeated statement that 45 million Americans are without healthcare. The author gets the actual number down to something like 4% of the population.

Here's the link if you are interested.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/07/21/se-cupp-obama-healthcare/

You all miss the point, this is not about health care, it is about the the government having total control of the population. Food and shelter are much more required than healthcare, when are Obama and the DEM's going to take over the distribution of food and shelter??

As for your comments about the younger folks subsidizing the older folks, this has always been the case. The difference now is that we Boomers have grown old. The first round of us will be tapping into Medicare in two years. And we will just keep on coming and coming and coming, right along with our extraordinary end of life expense.

Medicare and social security are already underfunded. Here's a pretty scary thing for you to read from "Leeds on Finance".
http://leedsonfinance.com/?p=306

"The government has placed a present value on how underfunded our social insurance programs are (i.e., Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc). That number (depending on your assumptions) is more than $40 trillion. Can you believe that? Forty trillion dollars? It’s approximately four times our current outstanding debt. Realize that this was the number as of September 30, 2008. As tax revenue has decreased, this number will look even worse this year."

There is clearly a "moral imperative" to be dealt with here, but it has little to do with seeing that those 4 to 7% get universal health care. Pulling the young and healthy into this mix will help pull the costs down, as will rationing care for sick elders, but let's be realistic. Aspirin, the wonder drug that it is, just won't work when you have a government on steroids. Look up side effects of steroid abuse while you're at it.

It was our "doing-good-for you" government that got us here. Trust them at your own peril to get us out.

I'm self-insured. Meaning that I'll just pay the bills, if I ever get any.

Vast savings over about 30 years so far.

The disadvantage of just paying your bills is that you get hit with a non-discounted rate for medical services, but on the other hand you've avoided all those premiums.

And you don't have to fight anybody over what's covered; and you don't get your policy cancelled or non-renewed if you get sick, the heads we win, tails you lose feature of catastrophic insurance.

Greetings;

Back in my days studying Public Administration, there was a concept that I came across that all my professors thought important. It was called "fundamentalism vs incrementalism". Fundamentalism referred to policy that began "de novo" as when Social Security first started. Incrementalism would refer to minor changes in a program already in operation, such as rates increases. It seems to me that the current legislative action ignores the opportunity to present two different alternatives to the American people. Instead of only focusing on band-aiding the present melange, why is there no proposal about if we had to invent a new system today what would we want it to do.

My second thought is a car insurance analogy. Almost no employers provide car insurance to their employees and yet most of them drive. This makes me question the employer-health insurance connection. Is it wise, necessary or just convenient. Similarly, I am intrigued by what I call the maintenance vs catastrophe question. Again, our car insurance does not cover vehicle maintenance, just some catastrophic events. Yet, the current political activity does not seem interested in this
aspect. Why are we accepting the implicit idea that all medical expenditures should/must be insured against? Do people really need to involve a third party (insurers) in every medical service provision? What did Americans do before there was health insurance? And, has health insurance turned into some kind of subliminal medical lottery?

Penny -

It is precisely the aging boomers that are being targeted here. How do you think Obama intends to save Social Security and Medicare?

By letting the boomers die by denying them life-extending medical care.

Good one brian.

If he laid it out like that, I bet many people under 40 would be all in favor.

That isn't really what I said, Brian. What I am saying is that we have competing interests here, the young and healthy, vs the old and those realistically closer to the expenses that come with end of life care.

The plans already discussed screw both groups in very specific ways, but really, all that is secondary to two things.

First...The government is broke, and cannot even meet its current obligations.

Second...The government seems to have no ability to self correct in the face of overwhelming evidence that the path they are on has not worked.

I am not meaning to be unkind, partisan or un-American with these statements. Just factual.

Let me make an analogy that I think all of us can relate to. You show up at a loved one's place when they think they are losing you because they see you less and less. In fact, you are just growing up. More often it is a grandparent, sometimes a parent, but you understand where I am going with this. They have no money, but lots of pride. They shove that $10 bill in your hand, and pat you on the back. They think they will see you sooner because they did this. The fact is that they needed that $10 more than you did. But you took it anyway, because it made them feel better.

These are highly emotional patterns we have fallen into that are not good for either the government or its citizens, not to mention the grandparent and the grandkid.

Everyone means well though. Everyone is playing their part.

Penny - your assumption is wrong.

Not everyone means well.

Obama and the Democrats certainly don't.

Socialized medicine is the vehicle for greater control over the personal decisions we all make in our daily lives. It galls them that we can freely choose to eat a Big Mac. It perturbs them that people drink cheap beer. Twinkies infuriate them.

What better way to dictate terms than to have complete control over the purse-strings of health care? Then they can say "You can't eat twinkies, you're costing the taxpayers too much money."

Ultimately, that's their goal. To dictate terms. And that ultimately leads to "You're too sick to be worth saving, Mr. Jones. Please go home and die now."

"But what if you get sick or need medical care tomorrow?"

Implicit in this question is the (incorrect) assumption that you have to pay the bill in cash, immediately.

You don't.

You get the medical care you need, and then set up a payment plan (including interest, of course) with the provider, just like you would with any other large bill.

As a younger man, I'd done that before, several times, and never had any problem.

There's no actual benefit to nationalized health care -- other than the benefits realized by government, who get to control your life even more than they do now.

A very good point Kim, and one that never occurred to me.

Miss your blog, btw.

To second Kim's point, when I was in graduate school (during the 1990s), I made between $5,500 and $8,000 a year. I declined the insurance plan offered through the university in favor of another one that cost about the same but offered similar benefits. Although my primary healthcare provider in those years was the student health clinic (the cost of which was figured into tuition and fees, etc.), I had to have a hernia operation one year, and I paid for my portion of that on an installment plan. A few years later, I had a problem with recurring headaches that required some visits to a neurologist and an MRI. Once again, I paid my portion of that on an installment plan.

Oops... I just noticed an error in my comment. The plan I opted for cost about the same, but offered slightly better benefits than the student insurance plan I could have bought instead.