The American Health Insurance Scam

When I was seven years old I had a lawnmower accident in which my left big toe was chopped up pretty good. It was a traumatic, for me, experience.

My Mother, not wanting the Emergency Room bill, called our Family Doctor, Primary Care Physician today, and arranged to bring me to his office instead.

We got there and there seemed to be some tension happening. I know that he was not paying a lot of attention to my toe and was discussing something with my Mother that, it seemed, she did not want to talk about at that time.

Thanks to the Doctor not doing his job I have a very deformed toenail on that toe ever since. And because it does not grow right there is always very low level pain there. And I have to pay more attention to it than all the other nine toes and all ten of my fingers.

What the Doctor was discussing with such intenseness was an overdue bill. He did not do his job because we were poor and running behind on paying bills. Which was not an unusual thing in my growing up life for a lot of different reasons.

Later in life I joined the working world and discovered that employees often offered Health Insurance after 90 days of employment. It was designed so that the Employer paid a large percent of the cost per paycheck and the Employee paid the remainder.

And this was also a weapon used by employers to help keep employees docile. Lose your job lose your health insurance. And even by then medical costs had gotten so big as to be unsustainable for the average working person.

Over time employees shifted as much of the financial burden of Health Insurance to employees as they could. They always claimed that it was a "Cost Cutting" measure due to declining profits. It also helped fund some of the obscene salaries paid to CEO's and other top level management.

Meanwhile small businesses and other employers who were not making tons of money had no way to offer Health Insurance. The market had, by this time, been gamed so badly that only the big boys had that option.

And then Mitt Romney (R), the Governor of Massachusetts at the time (2003 to 2007), had a brilliant idea. Why not set up an exchange and provide subsidies for people who cannot afford it and make it so everyone has to have Health Insurance by Law? And they rolled it out in Massachusetts. The Insurance Companies loved it. It subsidized their Massive Profits by law.

Too this day everyone in Massachusetts is required, by law, to have health insurance. And if you cannot provide proof of year long coverage when filling out your State Taxes there is a Tax Penalty applied to you. It can be, and most often is, expensive.

A few years later Barack Obama (D) ran for President. And one of his signature promises was Health Insurance for everyone.

And what he proposed was that they take Mitt Romney's Massachusetts plan and make it a National plan.

And Republicans HATED it. How dare this Democrat steal their idea and run on that? It was not to be by D***.

Well, Barack Obama won the election and after taking office as President had a long and contentious fight with the Republican Congress and finally was able to pass what is now known as Obama Care.

Now let me tell you why I have not had Health Insurance for most of this time.

What the Government provided Health Insurance Marketplace does is bring together the participating programs in one place where it can then take your income etc and figure out what health insurance you can get on your income and whatever subsidies you can qualify for.

Pretty straight forward seemingly. Isn't it? On the surface.

And when I go to the portal and fill out my info the best I can get, that I can actually afford to get, is a plan with a not bad up front every month, with a pretty steep co-pay and a deductible of about $10,000.00 or more. Depending on what year it is.

So basically, I am paying for Health Insurance that I cannot use unless it is a major catastrophe. For all intensive purposes I would be paying for Health Insurance that I will never really be able to use. I am propping up the Insurance Companies by being coerced to by the Legal and Tax systems.

And that is the scam. Health Insurance Companies get all of the benefits of the Law while you and I, the people paying, get all of the burden. And yes, there are subsidies. Those are provided by the Government. And who do you think pays them? Not the rich people. It is you and I.

You and I, Mr, Mrs, Miss, United States Citizen, are propping up the Health Insurance system and getting very few, if any, benefits for this.

Those of you who read this blog regularly know that I had a motorcycle accident four weeks ago. As of my last look, about four days ago, my bill with the Hospital is $33,000.00+. And that is just the Hospital part of it.

I am working with the Hospital to see what we can do about this. I believe that all the people and the organization that helped me should be paid.

So the United States of America is the only country of the first world countries that does not offer Publicly Funded Health Insurance. Only For Profit Health Insurance. And, it is the only First World Country that has people declaring Bankruptcy because of Medical Bills.

Hell, a lot of Second and Third World countries offer Publicly Funded Health Care. And no on is declaring Bankruptcy because of Medical Bills.

And that is all you need to know to understand why the myth of American "Exceptionalism" is just that, a Myth. We have, like every other place on Earth, our good points and our bad points. But we are not in any way "Exceptional" from any other place in the way that it is propagated and wanted to mean here.

What we are exceptional at is that we punish our poor and middle class for not being rich more than any other place there is.

We are exceptional about not caring about the welfare of our citizens for any reason unless they can afford it.

We are exceptional in the amount of issues we have used to divide us from each other that have no real bearing on anything at the end of the day.

We are exceptional at the amount of children we let die every year by lack of health care, lack of food, lack of housing, and especially Gun Violence.

We are exceptional in the way that we have lead the world in denying Climate Change in order to protect the rich fossil fuel companies and owners from changing our energy supply to renewables.

We are exceptional because we have championed the death of our species and planet because the alternative is thought to not be economically viable. Which is a lie by the way.

We are exceptional in that we believe that we are Lone Wolves and not members of a community.

And that folks, is how the American Health Insurance System, and many other parts of the American life, is truly a Scam. Designed to have the most massive wealth transfer in History. And it is working for the rich. More and more Wealth is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.

So how is that "Trickle Down Economics" thing working for you?