Saturday Morning

I try to take it a bit easier on the weekend, as I've not completely figured out how traffic flows on the internet on the weekends. Some weekends it seems that there's more people with time to surf on the weekend, while other weekends, especially here in North Carolina, people tend to go outside and do things.

However, today I'd like to announce that I found out yesterday that I got a 4.9% raise! Isn't that awesome? How many of you, my good readers, can say that you got a 4.9% raise this year? Pretty cool, huh? So, what I am I going to do with my raise?

Well, I don't actually get to SEE my raise. And no, this time, it wasn't taken by taxes. This time it was taken by health insurance. The insurance costs went up by 4.9%, and the company claimed to "absorb" that cost with "no employee contribution."

If I've got no contribution, then give me my damn money and let me decide if I want you to spend it for me. I asked. Of course, they won't.

I know many people have seen health insurance costs rise and rise over the years. I know 4.9% is a small increase for some people (our deductibles went up by 150-200%). But do you realize why?

In North Carolina, we have an Insurance Commissioner. His job is to see that the public pays as much as they can for insurance and that insurance companies make as much money as possible. No, that wasn't his original purpose, but that's what he's doing now..

You see, if you want to buy insurance in North Carolina, you MUST buy insurance for drug abuse, depression, mental-health, HIV, and dozens of other coverages -- even if you don't want it. If I want, as I do, to purchase insurance ONLY for catostrophic injury, The State of North Carolina WILL NOT LET ME.

This is just one of the examples of a total lack of freedom. I know many other states are this way as well. Why is the government of North Carolina FORCING me to buy insurance against me getting AIDS, for mental health, for substance abuse, and other things I don't want? Because they're so expensive to insure, that those who have the disease can't get insurance, so I MUST pay for them as well.

That's wrong. If you want to talk about a crisis in America today, let's address health care, shall we? As usual, there's a VERY simple solution, and just as usual, it won't happen: get the government the heck out of health care -- they are ONLY driving costs higher and higher. Let people be free. I know it's a novel concept, but it really does work.

Posted by: Ogre at 08:53 AM

Comments

1 Not to mention the fact that if the government took over the health insurance industry millions of people would be out of work, it would be bogged down in a beauracracy of epic proportions, and the reimbursement rates to healthcare providers would be so low that many of them would go out of business.

Posted by: Trench at June 04, 2005 09:35 AM (VEZiY)

2 Correct, Trench. Any system in which a third-party pays WILL self-destruct. It can be seen everywhere that government takes over healthcare -- Canada, Great Briatain, etc.

Posted by: Ogre at June 04, 2005 09:56 AM (YgrHs)

3 I just moved to AZ. I wonder how this is here with the retiree’s and Illegal immigrants (Terrorists) .

Posted by: Michael at June 04, 2005 01:30 PM (qTgxj)

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