Personal Challenge: Day 14

I am giving myself until October 31, 2018 to develop a better healthcare payment and insurance plan for my family.

Why that date? Because it is the last day for open enrollment at my current employer. I am already locked into the 2018 calendar year to participate in my employer's health plan, unless I quit or get fired.

Why a personal plan? Because no one is going to give me a reasonable, cost-effective plan. The healthcare systems in the United States are damaged. They are public and private bureaucratic nightmares. Yes, the healthcare systems do provide some of the best care in the world, but it is doing so with a decaying concept of insurance and mounting administrative costs.

It is high time that I become a master of my family's healthcare. And I am already 13 days behind the eight ball.

About

"CR Cobb" is a nom de plume (or in this modern day of calling everything a war, a nom de guerre). I am compelled to use an assumed name, because my views on healthcare insurance and markets runs counter to the policy of my employer.

I have a Masters of Healthcare that I earned a few years ago. During my studies, I realized that my social and political views ran counter to the overwhelming majority of my fellow students, teachers, and professors. I was already a free-market fundamentalist, but my eyes were fully opened, once I learned of the methodologies used to provide healthcare to the vast majority of Americans.

In this blog, I will present pragmatic steps that we can take to take back our healthcare from creeping bureaucracy - both public and private. I will also make the case for seizing more individual control over your personal healthcare and risk mitigation.

The Fallacy of "Healthcare Insurance"

It is easy to forget that for decades the United States HAD a health care system that was the envy of the world. We had the finest doctors and hospitals, patients received high-quality, affordable medical care, and thousands of privately funded charities provided health services for the poor. I worked in an emergency room where nobody was turned away for lack of funds. People had insurance policies for serious health problems but paid cash for routine doctor visits.

The Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul

Insurance companies are pushing fake "health insurance" that is actually mostly very-short-term savings/redistribution schemes with marginal real insurance value compelling doctors to avoid transparent prices BECAUSE OF fake "health insurance?" That's what Dr. Paul is talking about: "People had insurance policies for serious health problems but paid cash for routine doctor visits."

The concept of insurance was never to insure the routine, but to insure the unlikely but catastrophic. Obamacare is not only mandating that individuals have health insurance, but that individuals participate in very-short-term savings schemes with extremely high overhead (negative savings) and redistribution schemes that take from those with no routine care needs and give to those who do.

Responsibility for Healthcare

The financing of healthcare in our country is a huge policy issue that is fought over on multiple fronts. Politicians, bureaucrats, giant corporations, lobbyists, big and small providers, vendors, nonprofits, you, me, and anybody else that pays for or mitigates the costs of healthcare. The battlefields are all over the place. The battlelines are constantly changing.

But healthcare is not just a policy issue. It is much more than that. It is a reality issue.

And the reality is: you are singularly responsible for your health and the associated costs. No matter what a politician says about programs or policies, no matter what a bureaucrat says about rights, no matter how hard an employer talks about the great benefits of being on their plan, the responsibility falls on you.

What can you do with that? What can you do with the current conventional wisdom? How can you do what is best for you?

That's what we are exploring here.