Health Insurance for RPT's?

[Mark Schecter]

Hi, Dean.

Thanks for taking the trouble to describe your approach to family health 
care. With as many people to care about as you have, I have no doubt 
that this is a subject that you've given a lot of thought and energy to. 
I'm glad things have gone well for you and yours, and I hope that trend 
never changes.

I had a high school friend who got leukemia. He went through several 
years of very expensive treatment trying to beat the disease, but he 
finally succumbed at age 50. I have a brother who got hepatitis C, and 
he would have died without a liver transplant. He's playing music this 
weekend, age 54. My other brother had cervical spine surgery at age 55 
to repair the vertebrae so the nerves in his arm could work properly 
again. My father was born with a club foot, but with surgery and a 
lifetime of effort to overcome the limp, his foot carried him through it 
all. My brother in law had lymphoma, caused perhaps by Agent Orange, but 
with surgery and radiation, he lived to remarry, and raise his wife's 
grandson through the difficulties of Asperger's syndrome. My wife Jo's 
nieces love my Jo especially much because she's the closest thing they 
have to their mom, Jo's sister, who died at age 35 from a brain aneurysm.

Etc, etc. Things happen, Dean. I hope they don't happen to you, but they 
happen to me and those around me. If I didn't prepare for the 
possibility, I would consider myself derelict in my duty. One major 
medical emergency could wipe out everything you and your family have 
worked your whole lives to develop, and it wouldn't make much difference 
whether that emergency affected you personally, one of your children, or 
someone else in your immediate family. The point is, you don't buy 
insurance based on your assessment of the chances that you'll have a 
loss. You buy insurance based on what you could lose if/when you have a 
loss.

I'm obviously not about to attempt to tell you what you should do, or 
think, or how you should live. You're obviously happy with the choices 
you've made. I could not be comfortable with your approach to family 
health, and no doubt you could not with mine, but different strokes for 
different folks. All I can say is this: there are a lot of people, 
including me, for whom health insurance appears to be preferable to no 
health insurance, all things considered. For those people, it's about 
time our leaders followed our lead. If you think Congress should not 
make it possible for business associations such as PTG to buy health 
insurance at group rates, then presumably you will communicate your 
thoughts and feelings to your representatives. That's what makes this 
country what it is.

Best regards,

-Mark Schecter


Dean May wrote:
> 
> Well, Mark, I am one of the 40 million. I haven't had "heath insurance" (it
> actually insures poor health for all practical purposes) for 20 years and
> I'm not complaining. In fact, losing health insurance has been perhaps the
> greatest blessing my family has ever experienced. It forced us to get
> serious about our health and our relationship to God. We made major diet
> modifications and instituted a family policy that we would not go to a
> doctor without first having the elders of the church anoint with oil and
> pray. I could tell you scores of stories that you would flat not believe,
> but my children first hand witnessed God answering those prayers. Rare is
> the time when we have had to use a doctor. Several of my children have never
> ever had an antibiotic or vaccination. And I have 11 children.
> 
> 20 years with no insurance and 8 of my children were born during that
> period. That was 8 live births and 2 miscarriages with no hospitalizations
> and only a handful of doctor visits. Also during that 20 year period we had
> 2 trips to the emergency room. Yet I dare say we have paid the "health care"
> system (aka, money sucking vortex) far less during those 20 years than we
> would have had we been plugged into the system. 
> 
> And that, quite honestly, is what is wrong with most of your points, Mark.
> You presume being plugged into the system and the only options you present
> are those the system allows. But the last 20 year history of my family is
> living proof that there is another system, one that I have only outlined
> here in very scant terms. It is a far better alternative, one that really
> does insure health as best as it can be insured. 
> 
> Now if you want the government to "fix" the system, may I suggest you
> remember how well they fixed Katrina. 
> 
> 
> Dean
> Dean May             cell 812.239.3359
> PianoRebuilders.com   812.235.5272
> Terre Haute IN  47802
> 
> 
> 
> 
>