Insurance Insanity-

Our net on our pension check was a bit smaller this month. The new adjustments for our health insurance kicked in. Really kicked. The cost of insurance is way out of hand. It is insane, and not in a fun way.

Alternatives? I am exploring them. However, the options aren't all that hot. It is mostly choosing who will bend me over a barrel and tell me how much they are doing for me.

One thought is to take that premium and put some of it in a dedicated health savings account rather than giving it to insurance companies. That could pay for doctors visits and such. Dental? Pay cash and just have problems extracted if the cost is too high otherwise. Vision plan? What's the point, if you can't even see over the edge of the hole you are in? Some of the chain stores seem to offer deals. That might work.

Next, join the other poor and use the emergency room as your primary care facility. If something serious comes along, have the work done and stiff the hospital on the bill. What if the hospitals go bankrupt due to all of those poor uninsured people? I suppose if it gets to that point and nobody has actually found the nature of the problem and come up with a solution, then the system should fail. And, fail in a big way.

I wonder what would happen if terminal patients who can't afford insurance or any kind of treatment would march (albeit in a rather shambolic fashion) on D.C. and immolate themselves in front of the White House? The politicos would have to solve the problem, or at least hire homeless people to stand around the area with fire extinguishers.

If that outlandish hospital bill drives you to homelessness, you could move into your car (the beater you would have to buy after they repossessed your good car) and live in the hospital parking lot. They might even let you stay there. Just think of the bad press if they pressed you into homelessness and then kicked you out of their parking lot. They would look quite unkind, and probably drive you back into the emergency room due exposure to the elements.

It should not be necessary to sacrifice your firstborn child just to give birth to your first born child. Will back-alley health care providers push drug dealers and hookers out of all of those nice back alleys? Extending my life through sacrificing the quality of my life to excessive medical costs does not look much like a winning exchange. The medical industry is the ultimate drug dealer, and if the insurance companies are the ones screwing you financially I suspect you can find the other analogy.

The problem is huge, and our government still seems too busy throwing American warriors into a bottomless Middle Eastern cesspool to really address the problem. For all of those law degrees they are either not all that bright or else they belong in those back alleys with the hookers and drug dealer.

No. That's not right. I have known a number of hookers and drug dealers. It wouldn't be fair to them.