Insurance Reform

Anyone under 50 who believes that the government should provide healthcare or subsidize it is either a fool or an idiot. Anyone older, lost. This has nothing to do with Medicare, Medicaid, etc, etc, etc. It has to do with health insurance.

I am in my forties, have a family with two children, one with ailments and a spouse with ailments. I pay for my own insurance. I own my own business. I deduct my costs accordingly.

My insurance is not there to keep me alive- it helps for the prescriptions which are a lot for my wife and one of my children. I have a high deductible and a monthly premium that is actually the same as my car+home+life insurance. The other insurance I can buy from different states. My health, I cannot. This must change. The Republicans want to add this, but the Democrats are the party of NO here.

Now I stated that my deductible is pretty high: $4000. That is in case of a serious injury, however, if I am admitted into an emergency room (for example I have a serious accident or some drunk illegal alien smashes into my car; we have many of those here in AZ) I pay nothing. It is geared that way. So is the plan your employer has for you if you work for someone else and are relying on someone else to through scraps of insurance plans to you as a "perk".

Now it did work out for me. I got into an situation where I incurred a severe laceration on my finger as the result of some work I was doing at home. I went to the emergency room, waited for about 15 minutes and was brought into triage. There, the head triage physician looked at my finger and then HE ACTUALLY APPLIED THE SUTURE. His statement to me was that as a self-employed person, it must be important to get me back into the game. True Story.

Now my deductible is high as is the bills for the hospital, but the Doctor’s have to purchase their own insurance to stay “legal”. It is called malpractice insurance and it is much, much, much greater than any insurance you, me, or your employer (see previous) pays. Why? Simple: TRIAL LAWYERS. They are against Tort Reform. The Democrats are against Tort Reform. The Democrats are the party of NO here, again.

Now what is worse is that if this smoldering turd of a bill passes, I will be taxed additionally to accommodate those who are unfortunate enough not to afford it. What a crock! I think we need to employ truth in taxation just as we have “truth in lending” principles. I am in great physical shape, exercise frequently, and have participated in triathlons. If some fat puke who “cannot afford insurance” has a cell phone, cable TV, and wears bling, WTF?

How about a bill that presses a couple of those ideas on TRUE REFORM:
1. Precondition abandonment or significantly reduced waiting periods.
2. TORT REFORM, TORT REFORM, TORT REFORM.
3. Liquidate any state boundary laws. I believe this was once applied to banks a while ago?
4. Litmus test for Losers/Liars: If you choose to spend money on new rims for your Impala rather than look at health care, you are on your own.

Seriously, if my business imploded, and it could if our economy takes another nose dive, I would be out knocking on doors doing odd jobs, flipping burgers at Micky D's, sanitation "engineering", etc. I would be able to qualify for some state assistance and might consider using it for my child with ailments.

I understand that a lot of the older population needs additional assistance. I know that if the borders were dropped the prices would go down. If Doctors do not have excessive upfront malpractice costs, the price would go down as well. It is just elementary there. I do know that there are areas that need to be rooted, let the free market take care of that. I do not want to watch our level of medical superiority drop like a rock.

This whole "reform" is a sack. From the articles I have read and the commentary and cherry picking by some websites, there are serious issues with what the Democrat majority are attempting to pass and I applaud all those who have taken time to attend these functions, fight the good fight, and distill the evidence, yet still provide the original sources.

Employers like myself cannot possibly stay afloat if we are to begin taking on additional "fees", "surcharges", taxes in order to satiate some liberal dream fantasy.