I recently had a conversation with a business-owner friend of mine which was very upsetting to me. He was telling me about one of his young employees who participates in “Ultimate Fighting” events for fun. Recently, the employee came to work and his hand was purple after he “injured” it at one of these events. After searching the web to find a local “indigent care” program (since he is not responsible enough to have even basic and inexpensive health insurance), he went to a doctor who confirmed that it was in fact broken.
Apparently, the break is so serious that he will need the services of an orthopedic surgeon. Again, since he has no health insurance, guess who will pay for all of this? Yep, you and me, either in the form of higher prices at the doctor or higher health insurance premiums.
About a year ago, I had to have an orthopedic surgeon put some pins in my ankle to fix a broken bone – although he was great guy and provided me with excellent service, I now know why I had to pay over $4,000 out of my HSA for the day surgery center and his services. The reason it was so expensive is because of people like this who do not pay! It is the same reason that an aspirin in the hospital costs $12.
While I have heard every argument under the sun about why some people do not have health insurance (although it is tough to sympathize when this same person is driving a shiny car, has the newest MP3 player, cell phone and plasma TV), I became almost violently upset in hearing that somebody would be careless enough to not only lack health insurance, but also knowingly engage in a dangerous physical activity to boot. Hey, I may understand if you have some excuse why you cannot “afford” (read: prioritize) health insurance (at his age, the premium would probably be less than $50 per month), but expecting the rest of society to suffer for your medical expenses when you intentionally do something where injury is likely, is just plain inexcusable in my book. Why do you and I have to pay more to support this free rider?
What do you think? Your comments are welcome.
Braun Mincher, Author
The Secrets of Money: A Guide for Everyone on Practical Financial Literacy
www.BraunMincher.com
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1 comment:
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