And
if someone can afford to pay whatever it costs to have Dr. Sawbones peer down his throat, why does he need to pay an insurance premium?
We
had the best health care system in the world when we all paid a fee for service.
Competition did what it always did. It brought the
quality up and the price down.
Consumers were the winners and catastrophic health insurance made it even better by protecting the few
from being wiped out.
We need to somehow move back in that direction.
Not to more of what caused the problem in the first place.
We pay every month for years into a life insurance account and our heirs collect
once after we die.
Health care is something we all need. We don’t use it on a daily basis but, at least a few times each year, we do
need to go see the family doctor.
If we need it several times a year, paying with “insurance” doesn’t make any sense. At all.
Second, insurance is a “third party pay” system in which someone else is paying the piper.
If they tell you an aspirin costs $300,
so what? Someone else is paying for it so what do you care?
We had the best health system in the world with each paying our own costs.
There were cases in which people found their finances could be wiped out and worse when a serious illness or injury came along.
So
we created “catastrophic” insurance. That is, we all paid for our regular health checkups, tummy aces and flu shots out of our pockets.
Insurance only kicked in after we had reached a substantial “deduction” and/or when it involved a stay in a hospital.
It was when insurance
companies found they could increase their business by promising to reduce “out of pocket costs” that things got away from us.
Unfortunately,
the plan under consideration now involves making health insurance “universal.” We would all be “required” to get health insurance.
Now we will have government agents prying into our personal lives even more, checking to be sure we have health insurance just like
they now do making sure we have car insurance.
And that’s wrong.
There was a case a while back of a professional football player being
ticketed for not having car insurance.
These guys all make millions of dollars a year. If
But using “insurance” to
pay for anything we use on a regular basis is the wrong way to go about it for two key reasons.
First, insurance works well for those
things which are not very likely or may never happen.
We have car insurance for that unlikely event we will be involved in a car crash
with property damage and, perhaps, serious injury or death.
And despite what those involved in traffic safety would have you believe,
auto accidents are infrequent events to most of us. Some have never had a serious crash in many years of driving.
We all pay in a small
amount and those who do have an accident have a pool from which to draw.
Home insurance is for that devastating fire or flood that
wipes out everything. How many times does that occur in a normal lifetime?
We all die but life insurance is for an event that will only occur once in our lifetimes. (At least we don’t know
By JIM STREET
Ed & Pub
As the Congress struggles to come up with a “health care reform” package, one big help might be to forget
about the word “insurance.” That’s precisely why some say the US now has the highest health care costs in the world.
Right now, the plan is to somehow force us all to have health insurance. Businesses would be required to provide it and for those of us who don’t get it through
IRAAN – Funeral services were Tuesday in the Iraan School Auditorium here for Kathryn Lois “Babe” Smith of Sheffield, who died Friday,
June 6. Burial was in Sheffield Cemetery.
“Nonnie’s” kitchen at the Smith Ranch was a well-known haven for Hard Toast. “Nonnie," or
“Babe,” didn't have to answer much to her given name of Kathryn.
She loved sports and attended Iraan football games and summer baseball
games past her 90th birthday.
“Babe” also was a competitor at card games and dominoes and loved to visit.
She was born on Aug.
27, 1918, in Sanderson to Fayette and Kate Wise.
Kathryn was preceeded in death by her husband, Olin Aubrey Smith, whom she married
May 26, 1937.
She was also preceded in death by her parents; one daughter, Patsy Mae Smith; her brother, Henry Wise; five sisters,
Edith Slover, India Hess, Weiss Fletcher, Zola Nelson and Zula Wise; and one son-in-law, Lloyd Coots, Sr.
She is survived by two daughters,
Mary Lois Coots and her friend Daryle Coates and Oleta Kate Patterson, all of Sheffield; six grandchildren, Lloyd Jr. and Dari Coots,
Roger Coots, Olin and Kathleen Kennedy, Clayton and Stormi Kennedy, Kelly and Lorrie Kennedy and Shirley and Jeffery McMahon; l5 great-grandchildren,
Calen Coots, Whitney and Haley Coots, Robert, Colleen and Colton Kennedy and Shanna and Jonathon Tidwell, Dean and Hagen Kennedy and
Savannah Pendergrass, Patsy and Michael McQuitty and Will and Joe Kennedy, Dustin and Sean McMahon; one great-great-grandchild, Carli
McQuitty; one more great-great-grandchild, baby Tidwell, a few days away and many other family and friends.
Pallbearers were Will
Kennedy, Dean Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Dustin McMahon, Sean McMahon, Hagen Kennedy, Colton Kennedy and Michael McQuitty.
In lieu of
flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Iraan Ex Student Association in memory of Babe Smith.
Donations can also
be made to the West Texas Boys Ranch or the West Texas Rehabilitation Center.