The Tenth Blogiversary of Health Insurance Issues With Dave

Point of Personal Privilege – This post, the 266^th, marks the tenth anniversary of Health Insurance Issues With Dave.  I could not have achieved this milestone without you, the readers.  My one year anniversary post thanked Brad Kleinman and David Toth, the two guys who taught a class on eMarketing and social networking at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in January 2009.  This blog has had a lot of other helpers along the way.  I would be remiss if I didn’t take this opportunity to thank a few of my best proofreaders/supporters, the people who push me to improve this blog – Susie Sharp, Ellen Jacob, and Annie Cohen.  There are the long-suffering team of Jeff Bogart and Lianesha Mays who are often exposed to working drafts of these posts.  It takes a lot to start any major project.  I can still remember my daughter, Jennifer Kuznicki, pushing me back to writing in the fall of 2008.  And I need to thank my number 1 cheerleader, the first to read all of these posts, and the only person who actually laughs at all of my jokes – Sally Mandel.  Health Insurance Issues With Dave appears on the original BlogSpot page, my website, on LinkedIn, and the AOL Patch system.  It has readers throughout the country.  My proudest moments are when I hear about attorneys, CPA’s, and other insurance agents providing this blog to their clients as a way to illuminate the issues.  I hope to continue to earn your time and attention.  Reminder – the links in this blog are normally footnotes, a chance to connect you to more information.  The rest of the links are just me having fun!

Though it might appear that much has changed over the last ten years, the key questions remain unanswered – What are our priorities and are we willing to pay for them?  What we know is that Americans really don’t care who pays for our health care whether it is the government, the insurance companies, or our next door neighbor as long as it isn’t us.  We want access to any doctor, any hospital, and we don’t want anyone asking WHY or IF the procedure is necessary or warranted.  “Deductibles? Copays?  Isn’t it enough that I have to pay the premium?”  The first post discussed a terminally ill man, covered by Medicare, who was on the list to get a new kidney.   Did that make sense?   Are we, as a society, willing to even have this discussion?

There is going to be a lot of talk during the upcoming presidential campaigns about different ways to fund health care. Do we retain our current system, with or without tweaks, or do we choose to move to some form of universal / single payer health care?  Lots of numbers, big numbers, will be tossed around like monopoly money.  $32 trillion here.  $50 trillion there.  Please remember that our current system of health insurance is simply a process to compensate medical providers, an organized process to pay for and access care.  Before your eyes glaze over, stop and ask a couple of questions:

• What, specifically, will be covered?
• What is the funding mechanism?
• How will costs be controlled?
• How will the system increase revenues when the initial cost estimates prove to be too optimistic?
• What place will employers, currently major participants in our system, play in any future system?
• Will participation of either the consumer or the provider be mandatory?
• Do the insurers have a place in this?

My last post included a lot of information about Medicare.  It may seem odd, in 2019, to point out that words have meanings, but the blog was to serve as a reminder that the word, Medicare, actually means something.  Thus saying that you want everyone to have Medicare doesn’t mean that you want everyone to have free insurance that covers 100% of all health care.  That’s not Medicare.  We can’t have a useful conversation unless we speak clearly and honestly about the issues involved.

These four thoughts appear above the title of each blog post:

• PURPOSE Short Articles designed to illuminate different aspects of the health care discussion.
• CORE PREMISE If you think you know all the answers, you probably don’t understand all of the questions.
• CENTRAL BELIEF Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
• AUDIENCE Our current health care system impacts all Americans.

Thank you for ten great years.

DAVE

www.cunixinsurance.com

Picture – Have A Cigar – David L Cunix