Dirty Little Secret

Health Insurance. Let's see. Insurance? Insurance for WHAT? Annihilation by unaffordable health care? That's laughable (Oops! Better not bust a gut; could cost me ten grand)! I'm most likely stating the obvious, but doesn't it appear that the "insurance" industry is on the brink of pricing themselves out of their own market? I am baffled that as a whole (myself included), we continue to buy into their dirty little secret, the lie that we can't live a day without their "safety net". I envision a not so distant future strikingly reminiscent to that of our not so distant past. Can you envision CIGNA and the like dropping like aging insects? Going the way of the dinosaur? What would we do with all the money we used to begrudgingly dole out for insurance premiums? Forget cigarettes! Health insurance is much worse for your health! Ludicrous but true. Hmmmm…

Hey, want to take a trip down memory lane, just for grins? Yeah? Okay. Cool. Close your eyes and imagine that it's almost the summer of LOVE. The year is 1965. The sun is shining and it's a hot day in late July. Two clueless 22 year old parents drive their new bundle of joy home from the hospital after mom and baby have spent the standard one week convalescing following a normal delivery. One month later they get the bill from the hospital (insert music from the movie "Jaws" here). They open the bill and it.... (are you sitting down people? Please sit down or you'll fall over I am certain. I wouldn't want to be sued for your $20,000 trip to the emergency room.) The bill they opened that day in 1965 was…… under $300! Total! That’s correct, under $300. And the real kicker is, when they plucked it out of the mail box they weren't bowled over by a wave of nausea, like most of us are when we see a medical bill staring us in the face. I could now launch into the standard "good ole days" oratory, but I'll spare you the pain and suffering. I will, however, say this; my parents did not have health insurance. Few did 45 years ago, until in 1971 when John Ehrlichman, a top Nixon aide who was being heavily lobbied by the infant HMO industry, brought up the notion of profitability through providing less care to patients.

Now Mr. Ehrlichman, I'd say your messy delivery to Tricky Dick in the White House that afternoon could be likened to a cinematic tale of horror ever so popular at the time entitled "Rosemary's Baby". Little did we know that there was actually an infant insurance company in that black bassinet adorned with the inverted crucifix. No wonder Mia Farrow freaked out. On top of all that psychological trauma, her demon baby hospital bill was about to grow up into a strapping young and oh so evil $15,000 liability on a good day.

But I digress. Regardless, Ehrlichman's dirty little secret was hardly a bundle of joy, like yours truly and the manageable bill my parents received. Yes,back in 1965, health care was affordable. Insurance was a moot point. It was not necessary. My suggestion is simple. Get rid of health "insurance" (the nerve of them to still call it such a thing) and start over from scratch.

I sometimes wonder if that's what our wise old Mother Earth has in mind; ridding herself of us humans and starting over. Maybe we should begin entertaining the idea of a massive pandemic as our saving grace, or a new beginning, because if all we have to rely on when the swine flu gleefully mutates and makes its valiant attempt to gobble us up is our health insurance? Well, we'll just be shit out of luck.