Here's my two cents regarding all of the health care debate that is going on within the U.S. these days. Now granted, I know that this is an extremely difficult problem and there are many sides both pro and con for providing insurance, but it seems to me that the true problem is that the COST of healthcare has grown so out of place with reality, that it is now untouchable for some people. In saying that I don't really understand the logic in trying to provide insurance to the masses, thinking that this will help "control" the costs of healthcare. In fact I think that this will grow the problem of rising healthcare costs. It's almost like the insurance industry has created the same kind of environment that we find in Casinos using chips instead of actual money. The reason being that people are more apt to gamble their "chips" away, because there is not the connection between chips and real money. That is until your down a couple of hundred bucks then it all becomes too real. The out of control spiral between the medical industry and the insurance industry has grown so much that the actual "dollar" that insurance spends has no real value to the customers. Prices have been so inflated, and those of us with insurance know that the insurance companies magically pay the difference regardless of the inflated costs. The real problem is where the insurance companies magically get the money they use to then pay the inflated prices.
So what does a bobsled have to do with this subject. In 1998 my daughter was born through a rather complicated birth. My wife and I were at the hospital two full nights while waiting for her to arrive into this world. Those two nights I was told I could sleep in this chair that laid down into what the nurse said was a bed. I would have to take her word for it, because the evidence while trying to sleep on it for those two night proved the contrary. I told my wife later it felt like I was trying to sleep in a bobsled. It wasn't until about a month later, when we received the statement from the insurance company, that we found that I and our insurance company paid $400 dollars a night for me to sleep in a bobsled. Yep $800 dollars, two nights in a fold away chair/bobsled. Priceless. And so goes the circle of insured healthcare...maybe unless something else happens, like... I don't know...regulation?
