HEALTH INSURANCE

HEALTH INSURANCE

Health insurance has become a huge thing. Huge for our country and huge for me.

The company I work for is having us fill out application forms for three new insurance companies. We do this every year it seems. We will pick the lowest bid and be locked in for a year or two. Then we will get the huge double-digit rate increase (ours was 37% this year) and we will start all over again. Small companies like ours have little they can do to keep the costs down. One or two expensive hospital episodes during the term, send the rate through the roof.

Big companies are not immune to the problem. The 'Big Three' American auto makers' financial problems can be traced to the benefit packages (including health insurance) they have accorded their workers.

Its not an easy problem to solve (no big problems are ever easy). I certainly don't know the answer. I just hope we don't dive into some national or universal health system. But, you can expect the push to be ever stronger in that direction as the years go by.