From Another Standpoint: Health Insurance

FROM ANOTHER STANDPOINT:

HEALTH INSURANCE

By Phil Chapman.  SEPT 2012

Have you ever really looked at what is happening when you sign on the dotted line of your health insurance policy, and shake the agents hand?  Have you and the agent both assessed the odds around a very complex set of circumstances (your health), and decided to place a bet in the hope of coming out ahead? I can assure you that your insurance company has, and there is a good probability that you have not!

The principle that health insurance works on is that insured people join a pool. They all pay a premium every month. It is a statistical fact that some of them, sadly, will get sick and run up huge treatment bills. The insurance company covers those bills with the premium payments of both the sick people and the healthy people… with a little left over for themselves as profit. It is marketed as a way of sharing risk.

Unfortunately this system works on the misguided assumption that disease and accident risk is the same for everybody. It assumes that we all run the same degree of risk of disease, and that disease points its fickle finger at random, unfortunate, innocent victims. In reality this is seldom the case. The fact is that most of the diseases that afflict modern America are optional, succumbed to by choice. Cancer, heart disease, heart attack and stroke, obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, high cholesterol, and a host of other disease conditions have become so prevalent that they are almost considered “normal,” “expected”. They are not “normal”, but sadly they may truly be “expected”…in a person that acidifies their system by over consuming animal protein, becomes obese with the over consumption of sugar, and malnourished because of lack of micronutrients in an artificial and inappropriate diet. Expensive surgical procedures and prescription drug therapies are almost sure to  follow. Stents, heart bypasses and blood thinners made necessary by unnecessarily clogged arteries, knee and hip replacements together with pain pills made necessary by unnecessarily carrying excess body weight on joints inflamed by the acidity resulting from excess animal protein. Cholesterol lowering statin drugs to deal with levels unnecessarily high due to incorrect diet. None of this is normal. Most of it is quite literally voluntary. Most of it is caused by poor life choices, lack of body maintenance, and the conscious rejection of proper diet.

The frightening thing is that if these disease conditions become “normal” and “expected”, if almost everybody has heart surgery, knee and hip replacements, expensive cancer therapies, a cornucopia of expensive drugs to deal unnaturally with unnatural conditions…the pool system breaks down. Everybody would consume more health services than their lifetime of  small monthly premiums could pay for…and there would be very few “lucky” people who remained healthy. Insurance premiums would have to rise (as they are doing) and at that point the whole exercise becomes pointless.  If everybody takes out as much as they put into the system, then they may as well just pay for their own and dodge the insurance companies’ profits! The whole system becomes a Ponsi scheme where everybody takes out more than they put in…at the expense of an ever increasing number of new subscribers, the young and the healthy. The Obamacare system openly stated that young and healthy people must be convinced to join in order to keep the scheme viable.  When (and if) those young and healthies grow old and expect to take out more than they have ever put in, to get their “normal” heart bypasses and hip replacements, then even more young people must be signed up…a very undesirable prospect in a world crowded by seven billion people. The last thing we need is more people! And of course, the parents that churn out these new subscribers will expect pre-natal, birthing, post natal and childhood health costs to be paid for by….???

What about, you may ask, people who get hurt by accidents? What about people who incur medical costs not because of poor life choices, but because of car crashes, or falls, or genuine bad luck?

First consider that an accidentally broken arm is typically much less expensive to fix than a “voluntary” hip replacement or cancer treatment. For a person that has lived in a sensible way and stayed healthy as a consequence, and has not paid health insurance premiums all of their life, the couple of thousand dollars to fix that arm will be no problem. They would have paid the insurance man many times that amount over the years had they bought insurance.

Also consider that risk of physical “accident” is, to some degree, controllable as is the risk of disease conditions. A person that makes a habit of driving drunk for instance, or who loves to speed, who takes risks, disregards safe practices, or participates in crazy extreme sports…is much more likely to be a “rate sucker” as one automobile insurance company calls them in their advertisements. Their behavior makes them far more likely to sustain injuries that will outstrip their insurance premiums. Why on earth would a conscientious, moderate, safety conscious person want to get in an insurance pool with them?

“But anybody can have a major accident” you might say. True enough, but where do most accidents happen to people? First in their automobile…which has compulsory automobile insurance…with health insurance attached. Or perhaps in the home or yard. Take a look at your home owner’s insurance policy. There too you will find coverage for injuries sustained on the premises! How many layers of insurance do you need? Only one of them will pay (maybe)…the others are redundant and a waste.

What about when we get old? Old people have a a much higher risk of getting sick or hurt right? Well, only to a small degree. Certainly the results of decades of poor life choices and incorrect diet can bloom in old age…but the cause there is not the old age. Reduced muscle mass, with its attendant decline in agility and balance is normal as we age, but this does not doom us to disease and injury. Once more, right living, proper maintenance, and sensible choices are our best route to a long and enjoyable old age. Our bodies are designed to go the distance with us if we just respect them and take responsibility for our continued good health. And if the worst happens after retirement there is the Medicare system…which is really another insurance program that working Americans have paid for in advance all of their working lives. The basic coverage has no cost attached (being pre-paid), and is designed to take care of normal involuntory health  issues in old age.

Even considering all of the above, there are still those who fear that some major physical affliction might swoop in out of the blue to visit upon them. The dreaded cancer for instance, or massive physical disaster. An option in that case might be “Catastrophic” health insurance. These schemes are much less expensive and do not activate over sore throats or even broken arms…for those you are on your own. Catastrophic insurance is just that…for only that. Sadly, a catastrophe on that scale is probably going to wipe you out financially anyway just because of deductibles and the few percent of the Godzilla bill that somewhere in the fine print it says you must pay.

What about tests and screenings? The TV and our doctors (both of which speak for the drug companies) say that it is important to know our numbers. Cholesterol numbers, PSA numbers, bone density numbers. Then we need mammograms, and colonoscopies, bone density tests, blood panels and X-rays. Whoa! Lets think about this. Once again, most of these imbalance conditions are voluntary. For example: All animals naturally produce cholesterol as a normal and necessary part of their systems. Plants, on the other hand, make none. Animals that are biologically designed to be vegetarians have evolved the means to use, benefit from, process, and safely excrete the cholesterol that they make themselves. Carnivorous animals on the other hand have evolved systems to deal with their own cholesterol and also the additional dietary cholesterol that arrives in their food…other cholesterol bearing animals. The problem comes when vegetarian animals eat animal foods containing additional cholesterol which they are not designed to process. As a vegetarian I know that my cholesterol levels are normal…I don’t add any unnatural dietary cholesterol to my body because I eat only plants…as I am designed to do. Why on earth would I want to pay a share of the cost of cholesterol tests of a person that eats animal protein and overloads their system with excess cholesterol? And why would I then want to share in the cost of their cholesterol lowering drugs while they continue to eat the animal products that exacerbate their unnecessary condition? And then perhaps the greatest travesty of all…share the cost of treating the side effects of those unnatural and unnecessary drugs which upset other body systems…you must have heard, and been horrified by the lists of side effects that accompany TV drug advertising!.

Similarly, it is a fact that a broad based, whole food vegetable diet is low in calories and high in the wide range of micronutrients needed for health and vitality. A meat and dairy based diet on the other hand is high calorie and low micronutrient. Add to my vegetarianism a vigorous exercise program and the avoidance of sugar and processed foods, and I know that I am not fat…I can see it! I know that I am flexible and energetic! I can feel it! I don’t need tests to see what is missing from my diet, or to test my bone density or blood sugar level.

The insurance man is telling you, “In my opinion you are going to enjoy good health all your life and any amount of  money that I have to pay out on you will be much smaller than the total of the monthly payments that you make to me.  So I will come out ahead.”

You are telling the insurance man, “I bet that I am going to be sick, so unhealthy and deathly sick that my medical bills will be greater than the total of all the monthly payments that I make to you. I believe that I will consume more than my money’s worth of treatment and drugs and I will come out ahead.”  You are betting against yourself, against your own good health!

Now in our American society there are four types of people, holders of four different attitudes towards their own health:

First there are those that live in a purely physical, non-spiritual mental environment.  They believe that the physical world is quite separate from themselves.  They see disease as something that strikes at its victims in  random ways quite beyond their control.  Since this is potentially a huge  and uncontrolled cost, being a part of a pool, for them, may seem like a good idea.  They may well bet against their continued good health, sign the policy and shake the hand, and it may well bring them peace of mind.

The second group would be those that live similarly in a purely physical, non-spiritual mental environment, but who do not see themselves as victims of chance.  These individuals take some share of responsibility for their lives and thence their health.  They would probably view pools for health insurance as less desirable.  Since they perhaps watch their diet and their weight, exercise, and stay away from high risk activities and habits, they are more likely to be in decent shape and thus less likely to develop the conditions of obesity, hypertension, heart disease, diabetes or any of the other “diseases of affluence.”  Going into a health insurance pool, for them would be akin to going to a bar and buying rounds with a gang of cocktail-slugging friends.  Can you imagine drinking your $1 healthy orange juice and the friends downing $9 concoctions with umbrellas in them?  Your round would cost you $46 for which you would receive, by the end of the evening, six little $1 glasses of orange juice.  Meanwhile each your friends would have drunk $54 worth of cocktails for just $46 with you as their benefactor.  If you were a slim, healthy, non smoker with no children would you want to pool and split health bills with an obese, diabetic, sedentary, smoking, alcoholic with several children?  You would have to be mad!  It would be like a person who has paid extra for a high gas mileage hybrid car being invited to pool and share gasoline bills with the owner of a giant gas guzzler.  Its just not sensible.

The third type would be the person who perceives physical reality in more spiritual terms, and lays off responsibility for their health to some higher power.  They might believe that any one of the various deities of the various religions is creating and running their world, their life and their health.  Again, believing that they have no control, this type also may sign the policy and shake the hand…..in a way betting against not only their own  good health, but also the benevolence of their deity!

Fourth is the group who experience physical reality as a reflection of their own thoughts.  They have come to understand that only they are responsible for the conditions of their lives and of their health.  That their prevailing mental climate creates their reality in an absolute and infallible way, and that there is no other rule.  These people choose health.  They think health and expect health..and they are indeed healthy. Such people would naturally have gravitated toward a responsible lifestyle born of their understanding that it is they…not doctors, not drug companies, insurance salesmen, TV commercials, governments, heredity, nor gods who define their health.  They understand that their physical experience, including their health is infallibly created by their  thoughts, actions, choices, attitude, and expectation. Such people would probably be vegan or vegetarian, would avoid packaged and processed foods, refrain from unhealthy habits, would pay attention to pollutants in their environment, would have arranged a low stress lifestyle for themselves, and would exercise regularly. THE VERY WORST THING THAT SUCH PEOPLE COULD DO FOR THEIR HEALTH WOULD BE TO BUY HEALTH INSURANCE! To do so would be denying their entire system of belief, and by focussing upon it would be inviting ill health and disease into their lives in a very real way!

We are not all the same. We do not all think, live, act, or believe the same. To pretend that this is not so, to paint us all with the same brush, to force a health insurance system upon those that do not need it, do not want it, and who it would not serve in any but a negative way is wrong. It is discriminatory, forcing one group to subsidize another. It rewards irresponsible behavior at the expense of the responsible, and it is abusive to our country’s guarantee of freedom of thought and belief.