Healthcare: Worth Another Rant
admin
I was listening to the healthcare summit online today, and as a business owner and healthcare professional, please indulge me in yet another rant about it.
WHY do our employers have to bear the burden of our healthcare insurance? Furthermore, WHY would any of us want our employers knowing what our healthcare conditions are in the first place? We buy our own homeowner’s insurance (per MANDATES from mortgage lenders), we are MANDATED to buy our own car insurance in order to be able to have the privilege of driving in nearly all states, so why would I as an employee want my information shared with my employer? Also, why do I have the right to go out and party like a rock star, eat and drink and smoke whatever I want (not that I do…), while my employer gets to foot the bill for my bad behavior? WHERE is the personal accountability for managing one’s OWN health?
Healthcare costs are CRIPPLING economic development and the ability for our companies to move forward. Healthcare is nearing 20% of our total GDP. That, in case you were wondering, isn’t good.
Now, as for “managed care” and healthcare insurance companies, I think the only thing they are managing is risk at this point. I think I might have received one flyer on ‘wellness’ from my healthcare insurer over the course of the past year. I as a healthcare professional just keep scratching my head on how major healthcare insurance companies can be bringing in record profits while there are lay offs at hospitals, and everywhere else. Is this REALLY the very best way we can manage care in this country? Here’s where the federal government could come in and regulate pricing for healthcare insurance companies.
Why couldn’t we look at auto insurance as a model? Just like bad or risky driving, some PREVENTABLE healthcare conditions should DEMAND higher premiums for those who aren’t managing their own health. Employers shouldn’t have to bear this risk. As for pre-existing conditions, maybe insurance companies could offer not for profit models or lower profit models for healthcare insurance, and just offer preventative care (like PLPD insurance for autos). While I personally believe preventative care should be a right, not all healthcare should be a right.
We can’t have our cake and eat it too, without some cutting back elsewhere and exercise, peeps. Nor can we continue to assume that healthcare is a right through our employers. We all need to take back the notion of entitlement and start being personally responsible for our actions…whether it is diet, exercise, or dare I say…common sense. And, even though this site and company is all about the young professional, this healthcare issue affects ALL of us!
Thank you for indulging me yet again in this important rant.
Posted on: Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 4:28 pm 
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