Insurance and reform

(Jenny, this is my offering for the national day of writing)

The way the government views things for much of my life have perplexed me to say the least and infuriated me more than not. This opinion has only solidified under this current congress and administration.

Let's consider insurance, we all have lots of insurance policies to consider, we have renters or home owners insurance, car insurance and most of us have some form of health insurance. If you have bought extended warranties of appliances, cars or a home warranty, these too are types of insurance.

Now let's look at the way we use these insurance policies;

If we have home owners insurance, we only use it if we have a robbery, injury to a visitor, or catastrophic incident like a fire. We do not use this insurance to replace the garbage disposal or paint the house or even to get the house inspected to make sure everything is working okay.

If we have car insurance is is also for catastrophic incidents, accidents, fires and theft. We don't use or mandatory car insurance on oil changes, tires or car washes.

So now let's see what we have in health insurance, certainly a different attitude about it and our physical health is more important than our houses or our cars. There are many levels of health insurance, there is catastrophic policy, it only covers large expenditures like surgery and major health incidents, (heart attacks, cancer, etc) there are also the typical plan that cover your doctors visits and medications and catastrophic incidents. These plans usually have a co-pays. The next plan is what our government officials and many unions have, they are the "Cadillac Plans" these are expensive full coverage plans, no deductibles and include eye care, dental and are the most expensive. The beauty of this is YOU get to decide what you need and how much you want to budget for your needs and abilities.

So my observation is this; The health care reform being designed and bartered behind closed doors and our of the public eye seems to be a hybrid of the whole health care and the Cadillac plans. The proponents claim that people are going bankrupt and we need to save them from this fate. So we are looking at spending an additional 2 trillion dollars for this health plan.
For the record I am 100% against any government involvement in providing health care insurance to anyone, this includes medicare and medicaid and it isn't because I am cold hearted and want anyone to die in the streets, I just think that the free market is a better steward of these institutions. The government should provide some oversight and guidelines to assure that there is equal access to all to buy insurance. They also want to cover illegal aliens (constitutionally it is required that anyone living here has equal access). They also want to cover abortions and sex change surgery. (HMMMM isn't that special?)

Since the government has already committed to medicare and medicaid and the people who have paid into the system are entitled to a return on their mandated investment, this system is a part of our future. And, since this administration and congress seem posed to take control of 16% of our economy and give us the big socialist Universal Health care plan.

My solution to this issue;
I would opine that the government should have a base program for all citizens of the USA, this would be catastrophic coverage only. This would not include preventive care or painting the house. Now if you would like whole health coverage, you can buy that upgrade for yourself and again the same with the Cadillac plans. The cost of health insurance reform would be far cheaper to tax-payers and more people would be saved from that pesky bankruptcy.