The Medical Freedom Channel

(First off, an apology for not refreshing this space over the last week. I beg your indulgence, having spent the last eight days or so in various stages of that lovely respiratory “crud” making the rounds. When I could breathe, I could barely talk; when I could talk, I was constantly coughing. Under both conditions, anything resembling creative thought was just out of the question! That having been cleared up, now on to this week’s effort.)

Let’s take another look at the “health insurance” model, using a combination of personal experience and written discoveries. I was having dinner with some friends the other night, and (not surprisingly, given my own current endeavors) one conversation got around to this very issue, about health insurance. My tablemate avowed that she had recently taken several steps to take charge of her own wellness “coverage,” spurred on by her experiences with her (now-former) employer – whose economic stability was in some doubt, at least to her eyes.

Rather than remain on a company-healthcare program with a company that might not be around forever, my friend decided to take on her own policy. So she went out and investigated her options, and ended up purchasing a low-premium, high-deductible personal coverage policy through Blue Cross, one designed for minimal use yet capable of covering a major ailment, were one to be detected. As she noted in the conversation, she’s generally not a high risk-taker (no skydiving or bungee-jumping, thanks), so it made little sense for her to take on bigger bills. However, now she had her own coverage, in her own control, and not dependent on the fiscal future of her employer. In addition, she took another portion of her income and deposited it in a Medical Savings Account, as a buffer against the deductible costs.

Then, she said, she changed jobs, and is now with a more stable firm. But she kept the insurance policy; what’s more, she was able to negotiate with the new employer, which now not only pays her monthly premiums (on the policy she controls), but makes regular contributions to that MSA she still holds. The only fly in the ointment is the limit placed on MSA contributions at present; instead of being able to deposit the full $5,000 of her deductible amount, she is only permitted to put away about $2,800 a year. So far, this has been inadequate to cover her annual deductibles, though she hopes the employer contributions will mitigate that somewhat, or that she will have lower out of pocket costs in 2007.

So there’s a real world, right-here-and-now example of how at least one person is coping with the healthcare system. If the new plans advanced by President Bush go forward into law, one would hope they would also remove the restrictions on MSA levels, so that the much-vaunted healthcare deduction could be put to better use than just buying another overpriced “insulation” policy.

But then there are other folks who find the whole thing a complete waste of time. For example, in this editor’s “other life” as a Healthcare Columnist over at Free Market News, he just encountered some feedback to the latest installment of the “healthcare reform” series. The poster, one Joe Furcinite, affirms, “I don’t want so-called health care insurance,” and offers a link to an essay where he explains his position more thoroughly.

Upon further investigation, we find that this self-affirmed “almost 62-year-old” has rarely if ever possessed conventional health insurance, preferring instead to see to his own well-being, using a variety of methods, alternative and natural. In fact, as he puts it, “the more I learn about our so-called health care system the less I want anything to do with it. There are alternatives that are usually more natural, safer and much less expensive but are not FDA and AMA approved and are not covered by insurance.”

He then goes on to lay out just how the whole medical and health insurance games are set up, with all the extraneous costs and superfluous services, mainly thanks to the same third-party payment structures and misdirected intentions this editor has been complaining about for years now. He reminisces about how it was in his childhood, or even in more recent times, before chiropractic healing became part of the conventional medicine umbrella. He also challenges the conventional wisdom (growing less voluble with each passing scandal?) of how the Food and Drug Administration’s fiats are so allegedly wonderful for the wellness of us all.

In short he says about the same things we’ve been saying, in this space and elsewhere, and echoes the rising tide of people who are looking for better answers to all of this. Always nice to find another sane voice in the wilderness.