Call Me Bubba But The Problem With Health Care Is…

I saw a picture of some congressman sitting in front of a stack of paper last week that was the latest House crack at a piece of legislation that is supposed to represent health care reform.  I think I saw that is was something like 1,950 pages long.    I’m pretty sure any document that is that long is good for attorneys, but beyond that I have to say I am skeptical.

I think it is sadly humorous that there are those in government who think the whole healthcare system is too complicated for the average Joe to sort out.  Hell, how did it get so complicated to begin with?  Is anyone asking that question?  There is no doubt it has become brain numbingly complicated.  But those sitting on the left end of the congressional bench intend to make it “better” by making it even more complicated.

One of the biggest problems with health care as I see it, is that our government will not let the people create the market for it.  Or in other words, there  is such heavy regulation of the industry today, it does not work well in a country that functions best when free markets are allowed to work.  In a market economy, real competition would exist, and you and I would be able to drive costs down and quality of care up with our feet and our wallets.  And guess what; it’s fixin’  to get more complicated, and sadly, unless you are getting it at someone else’s expense, it is also going to get more expensive.

So, if you eat right, exercise, and take really good care of yourself, good for you.  Your reward for being accountable for your own health will be that you get to pay for some other fat slob’s lousy lifestyle.  All wrapped up in a nearly two thousand page document called “health care reform.”

The same men and women who  brought us Social Security and then robbed it blind; who brought us Medicare and are vacuuming our wallets trying to pay for it, are now going to get into the health insurance business in a big way.  If history is any indicator of how this hog is going to fly, the average Aamerican can can count on higher taxes, lower quality of care, less competition and less transparency.  Unless we stand up and raise cain, we are in for a true BOHICA moment.

What ever happened to the KISS principle?  I heard a story once that when NASA was trying to figure out how to put men in space  they spent millions of dollars developing an anti-gravity pen that would write in space.  I even remember when I was a kid, they used to hawk those things on the TV (along with Tang and those nasty peanut butter space sticks).  The Soviets solved the anti-gravity writing problem by sending their cosmonauts into space with a few pencils and pencil sharpeners.  

This whole thing has become a political hairball.  We are not going to see real true reform until our anointed and elected ones cough the damn thing up!

Somebody Talk To Me About Blanche Lincoln

I am not a political hound, wonk, addict, freak, junkie, or otherwise over the top aficionado of the American political system.  So no surprise I had not heard of Senator Blanche Lincoln from the great Southern State of Arkansas until I saw the NY Times article today that outlined her role in seven days of debate in the Senate Finance Committee regarding health care reform.

She appears to have a fairly conservative approach toward health care and is certainly far away from some of here Democrat pals pushing for a public option.  So somebody who knows Mrs. Lincoln, talk to me and the rest of my non-political hound, wonk addict, freak, junkie, or otherwise non-over the top political aficionados  about the likes of Mrs. Lincoln and her centrist pals and their potential role in the re-shaping of health care in America.

As a fiscal conservative, I’ll bet Mrs. Lincoln would like programs like My HSA Rewards.

How Can I Fund My Health Savings Account (HSA)?

Face it,  lots of Americans including me, are trying to find better ways to save more and spend less.  Especially when it comes to health care.  We’ve written a lot on this site about ways to save on health care and you can peruse the archives if you are not a regular reader.  But there is one program out there that we really like, and that’s why you see the green banners to the right and left of this post that lead to a program called My HSA Rewards .

We will be writing more about it over time, but the elevator speech goes something like this: “Become a member for free in My HSA Rewards and then when you shop for the normal things you buy every day or for special occasions, do it through www.myHSArewards.com and a portion of the $ you spend will be set aside.  Once you have earned $50 in awards from the purchase you have made you can deposit it into the HSA of your choice.  The rewards vary by merchant and range anywhere from 1% to 25%.” 

The program just launched a few months back with close to 300 online merchants.  Just in the last week they have added another 40 or so merchants to the program.  Think of the brands you shop, and there is a pretty good chance they are on the list of merchant partners.  It’s a great little program that wants to make a difference in how people save for their health care.  It’s pretty much a total no brainer.