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February 26, 2008
ideas
I recently overheard some older gentlemen speak about Medicare. Again, the issue was what gets covered and what is not and basically, how does one get the most out of Medicare.
I've been thinking about healthcare and personal responsibility. Is there a way to manage Healthcare cost on an individual level? Is it possible to motivate people to first, see the healthcare cost and second, figure out ways to reduce it themselves.
Along these same lines, my thoughts have also lead to the idea of insurance and role that insurance has grown over the years. People tend to have this view of insurance companies that Scrooge is in a large executive suite twirling his moustache, figuring out ways to cut people's insurance off. And, we do see stories like the breast cancer patient that was cut off. However, Health Net is a public company. One person did not do the deed by themselves but a group of people decided to do this and another group of people carried it out.
Stories like this makes me wonder if the issue here isn't greed but apathy of the group. Insurance has come a long way from risk management of a small group to a huge conglomerate where risk is precisely calculated and made very cheap by large quantities.
But, is there a way to balance the risk but keep the empathy? Empathy can be easily put back into insurance. Make it about our families, friends, and communities. I believe that people can be motivated to see the true healthcare costs and therefore, make cost-effective and difficult decisions if motivated by having to face their own families and communities.
With that in mind, I wanted to walk up to these men and ask them who pays for Medicare. They did but so do I and millions of us who are pretty much guaranteed to not have access to the program that we have so well paid for or we will be paying much much more than they ever did. But, that's alright, we can stay apathetic and learn how to shove our mess to the next generation.
Posted by azileretsis at February 26, 2008 05:34 PM
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