As one who has survived cancer, I'm really thankful I've had Kaiser. When I think of what the surgery bills would have been at UCSF...hundreds of thousands of dollars...everything covered by my insurance.. Preventive medicine...when you catch cancer, heart disease, etc. early it is easier to treat... I don't think dental insurance is worth it... David Ilvedson, RPT Pacifica, CA 94044 ----- Original message ---------------------------------------- From: "Susan Kline" <skline at peak.org> To: caut at ptg.org Received: 5/4/2009 5:25:31 PM Subject: Re: [CAUT] [pianotech] Insurance rant --was:Tax help for John >At 04:23 PM 5/4/2009, you wrote: >>Woah, Susan, >> >>No insurance? Of any kind? You're not really old enough for >>Medicare already are you? I just met you some 15 years ago. (You >>might not remember) You're still a spring chick! >Ha! I've tuned for over 30 years now. Age and the family fibro genes >are having an effect -- but I can still tune a mean piano. I was just >wondering today if I can manage to get to the fifty-year mark. I >would only be 82 then. >I have car insurance and home owners insurance. The car insurance >would pay out a little bit in case I was injured in a traffic >accident. Health insurance was just too expensive, and too obviously >intended to take advantage of the client, not aid them in any medical >emergency. There's a practice getting more and more common these days >-- sign up some poor bloke (or bloke-ess), tell them they are >covered, (yada yada), collect the huge premiums from them year after >year, and if they have a major medical expense, THEN go back through >their records with a fine-tooth comb, and tell them that they had a >pre-existing condition, no money will be paid out for your recent >(massive) treatments. And somehow the idea that they should return >all those premiums because the person was never really covered >doesn't ever surface. For instance, if someone turns out to have >throat cancer, go back and find out that they were treated for one >episode of bronchitis forty years before -- sorry, pre-existing >condition. I think that gradually over time, policies (particularly >policies for the self-employed) have turned from insurance into >carefully planned and ruthlessly executed theft. >Liability insurance I suspect is counter-productive. By deepening >one's pockets it tempts crooked people to sue. After all, if someone >is insured for a million dollars, why not try to get it? In all my >tuning career, no one has even whispered the word "lawsuit" to me -- >except a customer aghast at the idea that I would finish a tuning >after an owner has left me alone in the house. "Why, you could be >sued for a million dollars!" (He was a lawyer specializing in >liability suits. I was extremely glad to finish his tuning and leave >his house!) >Anyway, life goes on. I didn't insure my tools -- I still have them. >If I had insured my cello down through the years, I'd have paid for >it three or four times over by now. I don't have yearly physicals. I >don't have a regular doctor. I flat-out refused to have mammograms (I >don't think radiation over and over again is a good idea.) I get >dental work if I need it (broken filling, etc.) not on a schedule. >The dental costs tripled when dental insurance became common. My >knees are getting bad -- but if I'd gone to an M.D. with them just a >couple of years ago, I'd probably have been put on VIOXX. That was a >real eye-opener for me. If you don't take any damned medicine, it >won't get a chance to give you a heart attack or stroke ... I'm still >here, I never had cancer ... life is uncertain, but not always short. >I was really disgusted to hear on an NPR program recently than an >uninsured person is often charged five or six times as much for the >same procedure as an insured person is. That's just plain wrong, and >should be forbidden by law. Over time, given large companies and huge >amounts of money at stake, corruption happens -- when it gets too bad >to continue, the whole rat-infested edifice needs to be torn down >(before it collapses of its own weight, in a cloud of >powder-post-beetle frass) and rebuilt from scratch. We seem to be >about there. We're getting less and less and it's costing more and more. >Even given the state of the medical profession these days, if I >thought I had appendicitis, or if I broke a bone or if I was in an >auto accident, I'd rush to call 911 and be extremely grateful for the >help, which I would even attempt to pay for. Some things doctors do >supremely well -- the rest they shouldn't be asked to do at all. (In >my HUMBLE opinion ...) >As far as I am aware, even fully insured people will die of something >someday ... maybe before I do? Insurance doesn't prevent injury or >illness or loss -- it just pays you money later. (or doesn't ... <grrrr>) >Anyway, thanks for the nice thought. >Susan
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