Health Insurance - Prescription for Fear

What did Americans do before health insurance was invented? Health insurance these days is viewed as necessary as having food and shelter. There was a time in the not so distant past that health insurance didn't even exist. So why do people gasp in horror when they hear I do not have health insurance?

The underlying cause for the rampant fear I hear in people's voices centers on the cost of health care. One accident, one injury, one surgery, one diagnosis, can lay waste to a lifetime of savings. Without our cushion of money, our deepest, darkest fear comes to life: we might be left with no where to live, unable to afford food or other things we need to care for ourselves. Our survival feels threatened. We will be left alone to die. This fear is coiled within the innards of every human being. No one is exempt. This fear is the reason we have survived as a species. Its passages are well known to all, and nobody likes traveling them. The misfortune of a health mishap is enough to bring this ancient fear flooding back into our systems, making us almost crazy, a bit on the desperate side, willing to clutch at anything that seems like it is the antidote to our fear. The insurance companies know this. They purposely prey on this fear. They have spent millions and millions of dollars propagating this fear, making sure it never strays too far from our minds.

These fears, because they are so engrained, because they were needed to ensure the survival of the species, are extremely powerful. They rear up from our ancient reptile brains and we react violently to them. We find ourselves compromising in other areas of our life just to find relief from this fear. It screams its mantra over and over to us: "If you don't do something, you will be left alone to die!" So we do something. And maybe it's not the best thing. Maybe it's stealing food or money to get through lean times, maybe it's prostituting our bodies to pay the rent, maybe it's staying at a job we hate because hey, at least it's a job that pays the bills, maybe it's forking over hundreds of dollars to health insurance companies every month without ever asking them to account for the money we give them.

Almost everyone agrees that there is something terribly wrong with the health insurance system in the United States. The biggest thing wrong is that they have been preying on our fear for years, carefully cultivating it so they can bilk us out of hundreds of dollars each month. We faithfully give them the money we worked so hard to earn in the exchange that they will be there when and if we need them. More and more people are discovering the hard way, when they are sick or injured, that they were lied to (read about my journey into health insurance claim hell here).

Health insurance wasn't always this bad, but just like corporate greed, it grew out of control and now more and more Americans are becoming painfully aware of that fact (no pun intended). Now there are riders and clauses and pre-existing conditions. Trying to select a new health insurance policy that covers what you need has become either indecipherable or unaffordable. Since when did my health insurance premium become my second highest monthly expense, right behind my mortgage? And what exactly am I getting for my money?

Have you ever noticed all the news about health? Everywhere you look, a statistic is being thrown around. 1 in 2 women will die from heart disease. Smoking is the number one cause of death, followed closely by obesity. Cancer of all kinds seems to be on the rise. If you believed all the statistics, then your odds of developing cancer are 100%.

Have you ever noticed that the source of these statistics is strangely missing, or you cannot find the report they came from? If you can find the report, you are likely to discover it was published in a journal so obscure it's read by two people - one being the person who wrote it, and the other being a PR person for a health insurance company. Or, worse yet, the cross-section of people surveyed who make up the numbers for the statistic is so narrow that the results are obviously skewed to suit a specific interested party (that would be the health insurance sector once again). Then do you ever wonder how that tiny piece of skewed information ever was deemed newsworthy? What if it was pitched to a media person who holds heavy investments in a pharmaceutical company or the healthcare sector?

How come we never hear of happy statistics? Here are some that may warm your heart (I in no way am inferring that these statistics are validated. If you want to do your own research, by all means, do so):

The median age of death in the United States is 73.2 years for men and 79.7 for women.

Four out of five Americans will live to see the age of 65.

If you manage to live until the age of 65, you can now expect to live for another 18 years.

Four out of five, huh? Gee, I like those odds! If I lived an average life, the odds that I will be around to blow out the candles on my 80^th birthday cake are in my favor. That is just if I lived an average life.

Those statistics make me feel better. Much better, actually.

So, let's revisit those other statistics, you know, the ones that make you recoil in fear. Do you feel as stupid as I do for believing them? Does it make you wonder where your health insurance premium goes? Do you wonder what kinds of return you could get if you took that money you were giving to your health insurance company and invested it for yourself instead? Odds are, you'd have a pretty nice chunk of change when you retire at age 65.

Now think of this. What would happen if the majority of Americans cancelled their health insurance? The health insurance companies would go out of business. Healthcare would be forced to become more affordable, because they wouldn't be able to mark up the cost of their services (case in point: when I did not have insurance, my annual ob/gyn visit cost me $93. When I had health insurance, the office billed $150 for my annual visit. The health insurance company passed $135 of that cost on to me. How nice of them.). The cost of service would go down because then their odds of receiving payment go up.

But wait, you say. Health insurance companies fund research for new medicines and other things to improve the quality of life. Really? Do you know this for fact, or is this just something you heard? Something, perhaps made up by a health insurance PR person to discourage you from ever thinking of not giving them your money? I challenge you to question this statement.

The bottom line is this: health insurance companies are just like any other company. They are in business to make money. They are in the fear business. Their marketing campaign of doom and gloom is designed to hit us in our most vulnerable spot. Most of us blindly believe that our survival is at stake if we do not have health insurance. The next time you feel that fear rising up to choke you, question it. Question where it came from, question its validity. This is the only way we are ever going to be able to change the healthcare system. We must break free from this chokehold of fear we are gripped in so we can stop reacting and begin responding in a reasonable, rational manner.

Sources: Bard Lindeman, Answers on Aging (http://beoutrageous.com/IYP/death.htm)What Happy People Know, by Dan Baker and Cameron Stauth