I’m not sure I know why this is so complicated.

Perhaps it’s because no one really understands the problem.

We don’t need healthcare reform.  We do need health insurance reform.  The cost of simple procedures is completely out of control.

Recently I had to take a trip to the emergency room at 2am with my son for a condition that turned out to be no big deal really, but as a rookie parent we had to err on the safe side.

I received the bill for that 4 hour adventure a week or two later, totaling over $800.  Interestingly enough, we incurred a $400 charge just for signing in at the window!

How absurd.

So let’s cut to the chase.

Our government is setting out to provide affordable healthcare to everyone, and you can read my rant on the word affordable in a previous post.

Aside from the fact that not a single person in this country even has a right to heathcare, the government thinks everyone needs it anyway.  And quite frankly, the governments record isn’t all that stellar.  Medicare, medicaid, social security… the postal service…

Our representatives have no idea where their constituency stands on this position, as many of them refuse to even find out.

One of my representatives voted for the House version of the healthcare bill even though a majority in his district don’t want it.  On top of that, he didn’t even read the 2,000+ page bill before he voted on it.  Big surprise.

So why is this so hard?

If our government would get back to basics instead of trying to fix problems by baffling us with thousands of pages of bullshit, we’d probably all be better off.  Let’s remember what rights we do have as set forth in the constitution, and not try and level the playing field by asking people who can pay, to pay for people who can’t.

What does a MRI, X-ray, CT-scan really cost, and how can we lower those costs.  The Japanese figured out how to make a cheaper MRI machine and got the cost of a MRI down to less than $100, a $1,400 proposition here in the U.S.

Figure out how we can promote the reduction in costs.  Creating competition in the health sector will be a start, along with opening up health insurance across state lines.

Let the free market work, and quite artificially stimulating it!

It’s been a rough week, and to cap it all off, I’ve been stricken with a cold for the last several days.  No, it’s not the swine flu.

Friday seemed to kick me in the groin like a rough Monday usually would.  Not having any motivation to pack my lunch like I usually do, I made my way to the local Arby’s for a French Dip sandwich.  Unbeknown to me, the server put the “dip” portion of the meal (I think they call it a-jus) in a cardboard container, upside down in the to-go bag.  The fact that the container had a hole in the cover should pretty much finish off the story for me.

A jus all over the carpet of my vehicle, and nothing to “dip” my “French” in for lunch.  Bummer.

Then, I get chewed out by a co-worker for not filling out a form before working on a project.  He’s the team lead of another group in our building, so I don’t work for him, but he decided to “chew my a$$” for not filling out the form because my boss “chewed his a$$” for his guys not filling out the same form.

Rather than stir the pot, I vehemently admitted that I should have filled out the form, despite the fact that I really didn’t need one, and he would have known that if he would have asked a few questions prior to commencing the “chewing”.

This guy is former military, where jumping down someones throat seems to lead to results, but those tactics generally don’t work in the civilian world.  Further, it shines of poor leadership skills to “chew someone’s a$$” just because someone else chewed on yours.

For the trifecta, the weather is beautiful this weekend and I’m stuck inside with Sudafed head and a sore throat.

On the bright side, the market was up this week, and despite some bad employment numbers that were better than expected, things might be off to a good start on Monday.

Last Friday I had to meet with a benefits adviser from my company; we are switching benefits providers, and there was “some important information that had to be documented, such as beneficiary elections, etc”.

It turned out it was just an opportunity for the provider to try and sell their benefits one on one.

To be honest, I was really turned off by the benefits, or more specifically the number of benefits I was offered. Not that we don’t have enough benefits, that’s not the case at all. There were just too many benefit options above and beyond the standard health, vision, dental, and life insurance.

Among the others:

Voluntary short term disability
This was a strange one. I could elect to buy an additional policy to cover any time not covered by the primary short term disability policy. For just $2.50 out of each paycheck, I could extend the policy by six months. Note that this is not a part of the primary policy, this is a follow on policy. For just $4 more out of every paycheck, I could add my wife to this as well.

Voluntary long term disability
Naturally, the period of time not covered by the short term policy, or the “voluntary” short term policy, OR the primary long term policy. For just $1.50 more, you can extend the primary long term disability policy. Oh, and if you want to add your wife to this policy, it’s just $3.75 more out of every paycheck.

Cancer and Heart Attack Insurance
OK, so sign up for this one, and if you ever become diagnosed with cancer (and one in three men will!) we’ll pay you $5,000 once the official diagnosis is made. You don’t even need to apply the money towards treatment. You could even apply the money towards funeral costs should you end up dying from the cancer. Additionally, if you ever have a heart attack, kidney failure, or other seemingly fatal diagnosis, we’ll pay you an additional $5,000! All this for only $4.95 per paycheck; add your wife and it’s only $10.25.

Oh, and by the way, if you die and the autopsy reveals that you died of a heart attack, we’ll send the check to your beneficiary.

You can increase those numbers to $10,000 (or any other amount for that matter) if you want, but it will cost you!

Deductible policy
This is like a rider for your health insurance. You pay an additional $2.95 per paycheck and this policy will cover your co-pay, prosthetics, x-rays, cat scans, etc. Add your wife for only $3.95 per paycheck.

GIVE ME A BREAK!

It’s very difficult to turn down insurance. After all, it’s your health we’re talking about here! I started thinking about it pretty hard, so hard in fact that I almost started feeling guilty if it turned down the policy.

The gears in my head were turning so fast my hair felt hot. I added up all the additional premiums that would be subtracted from my paycheck, and they totaled somewhere north of $30 per pay period (twice a month).

During the entire spiel, the representative threw in quips that would help fuel my guilt if I turned down the policy. “You know, for just $2 per paycheck you could alleviate whatever additional bills may be associated with little Johnny’s incurable cancer treatment in 10 years…” Who could say no to that? I CAN!

After all, isn’t this what health insurance is for in the first place?

I felt a bit insulted that the rep would come in and try to sell me stuff I don’t need, and in the process make me feel guilty about turning it down.

Part of my aggravation relates to my general observation of the insurance industry. They love to take your money, but they really don’t want to pay out when you file a legitimate claim. They’ll find any excuse and loop hole to deny your claim, and then you have to spend even more money, time and aggravation to fight the fact that they’re not upholding their end of the bargain.

I can just see it now:

“Dear Grant, we’ve received your claim for the nearly fatal heart attack you suffered. However, since your heart attack occurred while you were sitting in a lazy boy watching football and eating Cheezy Puffs with high levels of trans-fats, we can not fulfill your claim at this time. Better luck on your next heart attack!”

What say you? Is there such a thing as having too much insurance?

It’s that time of year again. Holiday cheer, Christmas shopping in conjunction with raiding the left over Halloween candy isle at the grocery store, and oh yeah, open enrollment for benefits at work. Blehhhh.

That’s probably my least favorite administrative task at work. Pick a health plan. There’s only three, they’re all free, but if you foresee yourself needing this little benefit in fine print, you need the “premier blue” plan, but that comes with an additional $500 deductible, a smaller approved doctors lists…

…and this is where I lose interest.

To its credit, my company spends a lot of time and money making sure I know how to best take advantage of the benefits plan. Seminars for health, dental, vision, employee stock purchase plan, 401(k), pension, flexible spending accounts. You name it, there’s an informative meeting on it.

I don’t mean to belittle the process, it just seems that I spend an awful lot of time trying to determine whether I need to change things up a bit, only to leave them the same.

Ironically, I was browsing through the online Journal this morning and came across an article by Terri Cullen concerning this very subject.

She says that the biggest mistake many employees make is that when faced with a decision on which health plan to pick, they don’t pick any of them. That mistake could leave them with no coverage for an entire year, regardless of the differences in copay.

Incidentally, Cullen mentions that the biggest reason that companies are pushing their employees to be more up to speed on their benefits options is because they’re pushing more of the health care costs on to the employees themselves. Plan deductibles are rising, and many companies are providing a health savings account plan.

I understand that health care costs are rising, and I don’t necessarily expect the employer to absorb all of the cost increases. However, it does force one to look farther out into the future and try to account for events that may ding your wallet, aside from the typical doctors visit or late night trip to the ER for a broken wrist.

An interesting change change of the times indeed, and perhaps more a reason to pay attention in those open-enrollment seminars.

I’ve been battling the precursor to a cold for the last week or so. I call it a precursor because it’s not a full blown cold just yet, but I can tell my body is working overtime to fend something off.

I’ve always been a big fan of Sudafed, but regardless of the marketing to the contrary, Sudafed seems to throw my brain into a fog, but it does seem to work.

Since I don’t want to be completely worthless for the next few days, I want to stay away from the Sudafed till I really need it.

Yesterday during lunch I went out and bought a big jug of Vitamin C tablets. Today, on a similar mission I bought a small bottle of Zicam.

For over $10 I bought a small bottle with just 25 tablets. Taking the tablets as directed means my $10 bottle of Zicam will last me just 5 days.

After only having taken 4 tablets so far, I can’t say I’m getting any better, but I’m not feeling any worse either.

Does anyone have experience with Zicam? What’s your “guaranteed to work” cold remedy? I’m open for suggestions!

I don’t write about health and fitness very often (or at all, for that matter), but I had a revelation that I found very interesting after a trip to the gym and a freak encounter with an unopened bag of Oreo’s.

After going about a mile on the treadmill, the fancy computer told me that I burned about 160 calories as a result of my efforts. Muscles aching and sweating profusely, I left the gym and went home. When I walked through the kitchen, a brand new bag of Oreo’s was calling my name.

Knowing I’d feel guilty about snarfing down some Oreo’s after I’d just got some exercise, I looked at the nutritional information on the back panel of the bag of cookies.

Conveniently, a serving of Oreo’s is only 3 cookies.

The price you pay for eating those 3 cookies? 160 calories.

I could have wiped out my entire workout by simply eating 3 cookies!

And that’s not counting the milk!