How Does One Even Think About Health Care When They Are Droppin Jacko In The Ground?

I suppose one good thing about Jacko’s death is that it has overwhelmed the political rhetoric around health care for a few days.  Or at least it has tamped it down.

In fact it has really quieted pretty much all of politics as well as anything else either newsworthy or masquerading as news.  We’ve sort of replaced one stink with another, in a refreshing kind of way…. 

The battle that is taking place inside the Beltway is not, nor is it going to be, a pretty one.  We can only hope and/or pray politics gets pushed far enough to the side to allow some light to come through, and for some decent ideas and policies to push through the morass.

The question that keeps rolling around in my noggin’ is whether, at the end of this debate around health care, we will have witnessed the very best of American politics or the very worst.  And by that, I don’t mean the debate itself.  That is nothing but butt ugly.  I’m talking about the end result.

To that end, I recommend that anyone who reads this post, make some noise.  Do what you can to be heard.  Help be part of the collective roar.  This Jacko thing is not going to last forever, and when it quiets we need to fill the void with our voices.

March Naked For Health Savings Accounts

On the Tweet Deck this morning I noticed a comment by @sheldonM regarding HSAbureaucracy.  While there is a pretty good chance me and Mr. M. would not see eye-to-eye on the general direction of health care, he did make a comment on which we could find some agreement.  He was lamenting the bureaucracy associated with his health savings account.  Specifically the cost of time associated with administering ones health care extrapolated across the population.  Now he didn’t say this but I would agree that health care administration overall represents an outrageous and insulting amount of personal and professional time for us and extreme costs fo them.

Certainly the development of high deductible health plans and HSAs have not reduced wasted time, however I don’t think this is a function of the existence of these products.  From an insurance perspective, I have had it both ways.  I lived with an HMO for years before switching to an HDHP.  I can state from personal experience, the time I spent screwing around with my insurance company related to the HMO vs. the time I spend screwing around with my insurance company related to my HDHP is a wash.  Each type of plan had its own nuances which led to frustrating wastes of time dealing with the insurance company du jour.

The problem, in one person’s opinion, in not generally the plan itself, but how the insurance companies administer the plans.  Communications between the doctors, hospitals, insurance companiesis a joke regardless of the type of plan.  The insurance companies treat customers as their enemies as opposed to their allies.  As the owner of an HDHP who pays 100% of my insurance premium, this especially frosts my goodies.  I’m the customer for goodness sake.

Why can’t sheldon and I simply go into the doctor, get our discount for services at the point of sale, Know exactly what the cost is going to be, pay the tab and be done with it?  Why do we not know what it is going to cost us for the services rendered until much later.  Why must we wait around for weeks and weeks for some mystery turd to show up in our respective mail boxes and then be faced with figuring out how we will pay the doctor’s bill, which likely we will not be able to decipher?

If we can put a man on the moon, blah, blah, blah……

This is but one example of gross and dehumanizing inefficiency in the health care system.  Keep peeling this onion and you can cry me a river.

So what can you do about it?  Be like sheldonM and make noise.  Write your congressman.  Call your favorite talk radio host.  Send a letter to the editor. Blog. Tweet. Start a revolution on FaceBook, MySpace.  March on Washington.  March on your insurance company.  March naked around your yard.   Do what it takes to get noticed.  But don’t wait ’til March.  Turn a collective yawn into a collective roar.   Simple.

If Jacko Had A Health Savings Account…

…he and General Ellisimo Francisco Franco would still be dead. 

High Deductible Health Plans with HSAs give their users/participants a fighting chance for a healthier lifestyle.  They represent a carrot AND a stick approach.  But they do not a represent a gun to one’s head.  The choice is ultimately the participant’s.  They can either be responsible and by that I mean they can use the HDHP as motivation to become more healthy with the goal of spending less on health care, and they can use the HSA to be responsible and save money for the day when they or a family member will need health care.

The problem many folks have, is that paying for health care is not a priority.  They have come to rely on the government or their employer to pick up the tab.  Sadly, folks have come to believe that is an entitlement.   That somehow they should not be responsible for that.  What they don’t realize is that, that mentality results in higher costs for everyone in the form of taxes and for goods and services.

Educated consumers drive costs down.  Think about the auto industry.  Years ago the manufacturers had all the leverage because the consumer had no idea what it cost to make a car.  But now, with the internet and more transparency in pricing consumers have a much better idea of what they should be paying.  This has forced manufacturers to become more efficient in their production, driving the quality up and and vehicle costs down.   And by the way, the cost of health care for current and former employees is a big chunk of the reason why both GM and Chrysler are in chapter 11 today.

The same concept is at work with HDHPs and HSAs. 

With regard to Jacko and the General.  The General was dead long before the advent of HDHPs.  And Jacko, sadly and seemingly was waaaaaaaay beyond the benefits an HDHP or any insurance plan could provide.

Health Insurance and Life’s Inconveniences

Some real cool cat whacked my car a couple of weeks ago when it was sitting on the street.  In addition to putting about a 12” x 12” tattoo on the side of my door broke my side view mirror off.  Thanks for not leaving a note Jack.

I took the car to the dealership and they kindly glued the mirror unit back together at no cost, but sadly the glue did not hold and I had to go shopping for a new mirror.  The part at the dealership was $160. I found a replacement part online, new (but not original manufacturer I don’t think) for $67 delivered to my house.  I’ll do the install myself.

“Consumer Driven Health Care” for my car as it were.  My car was sick through no fault of its own.  I decided what “doctor” I wanted to have look at it.  With the diagnosis and pricing in hand for the cure, I elected to cure of my choice at a price that was competitive in the market.  If I had been in a wreck and significant damage were done to my car, my insurance would have been there to take care of what would have been a really big problem.

High Deductible Health Plans with Health Savings Accounts are the same concept.  You, as the consumer pay for the smaller stuff (although many HDHPs provide basic well care) and if something major happens, your insurance is there to cover you.  You have some ability to shop based on price (transparency is getting better over time) and can decide from whom you want to purchase services.

Folks have lost sight of the fact that health insurance is there for the big stuff.  Not really a novel concept, but really the basis for sustainable value based health care.

Out in the Sticks with No Health Insurance Coverage

My son is off visiting his grandmother this week and of course the first night he is there he calls home 5 times in the middle of the night to speak with Mom.  Dad, after all, is pretty much the call of last resort when it comes to these kinds of things, and goodness knows, he wasn’t going to walk down the hall and wake Nana.

 The next morning after a bit of cajoling, my mom takes his temperature and sure enough he’s got a 102+ fever and we are thinking oink flu.  As luck would have it my mom lives in the middle of nowhere and the closest walk-in clinic is Clemson Urgent Care over by Clemson University.

My mom and my son finally got out of the waiting room and into one of those ice box examining rooms.  At that point I finally was able to reach my mom by cell phone.  As luck would have it, the urgent care facility was outside of the Humana network, so I knew I was going to have to swallow one big fat horse pill of a bill.

Here is the advice I gave my mom.  First I advised her that when she went to check out that she was to ask them “what the discount would be for paying for the services today.”  She was very nervous about this but I suggested that there was no harm in asking.  Logically speaking, they should be open to the idea since they would still be making more $ than going through insurance, they would be getting their money faster and there would be no hassle of paperwork with the insurance company.

Second I advised her to ask the doctor to write any prescriptions as generics.   And finally, I asked her to fill the prescription at Wal-Mart on her way back home rather than at the pharmacy at the clinic.

Just for asking for a discount she got 15% off the office visit which on a $200 tab (ouch!) was $30.  She got a generic prescription for an antibiotic which she had filled at Wal-Mart for $4.00.  Of course I will be able to reimburse myself from my HSA.

I was not real pleased with my insurance company’s lack of coverage, but under the circumstances the out of pocked cost could have been $30+ more.  This is but one example of Consumer Driven Health Care at work.

The moral of the story is. SPEAK UP, ASK FOR DISCOUNTS, GENERICS, AND KNOW YOUR OPTIONS WHEN IT COMES TO FILLING PRESCRIPTIONS.  It costs nothing and might yield some real savings

On Fathers Day – “Yours Is The Earth And Everything That’s In It”

My Dad passed away 14 years ago.  He came to my ballgames up to the day he died.  I was 31 years old when he “got called up to the Bigs,” and by then my wife and I had a beautiful child of our own.

 When I was a kid, he never missed a game that I remember.  I played sports pretty much year-round, so there were a lot of games.

 He always made me feel like mine was “the earth and everything that’s in it*.”  Not through some amazing skill of parenting, some brilliance of intellect, or some special training he got from a book or school along the way. 

He did it by showing up.  He was the guy leaning against the fence down the third base line on a hot summer’s day.  A face in the crowd on a rainy day at some leaky gym in the city.  A man standing in the freezing cold on the sideline of some Jr High gridiron two counties from home.  Brilliance in simplicity.

 Somewhere along the way, I surmise, the roles got reversed.  I don’t think he came to church softball games when I was thirty years old because he thought I needed him there, or to see some sport played at its highest level.  I think perhaps, the joy he gave, became the joy he received.

Sometimes I think I am not much of a Dad and I know my teenaged kids probably would agree.  Hopefully though, over time, my children will forget that.   What they remember, I hope, is that I showed up.

Let’s celebrate and remember our Dads!

The $1.6 Trillion CBO Health Care Reform Estimate – A Little More Than Loose Change

The CBO’s $1,600,000,000,000 estimated cost of the Kennedy sponsor, ed health reform plan this week threw a bit of cold water on the health care reform debate, and hopefully is beginning to wake our elected yahoos as well as the rest of us upto the seriousness of this debate.  Poorly considered and Governmentally executed programs generally lead to disasterous consequences. 

One solution to this sobering news is to deny it, as Nancy Pelosi has evidently done in suggesting that the Congressional Budget Office s has a way of providing “worst case scenarios.”  Just for the record the CBO is a federal agency established by Congress about 35 years ago to estimate congressional spending.  It is intended to be non-partisan and consists of economists and math wizards who in all likelihood are far more likely to accurately estimate spending than a former housewife and 30+ year politician.  While there are no doubt a few members of Congress with the experience and horse power to crunch some of the numbers related to congressional spending, to dismiss the CBO out of hand seems a bit irrational and somewhat arrogant.

But this is all good stuff.  Cold water on a sleeping body helps create focus. It stirs the debate.  I think Congress, for the most part, was already awake to the debate, but hopefully this will create greater focus.  More importantly, I hope this bucket of CBO cold water wakes the sleeping giant which is the American Public.  Stirred from our sometimes automatonic-like ways we are a force with which to be reckoned.

Change we can believe in is change we initiate, get behind and push forward.  Change can be a bit terrifying but that does not necessarily make it bad.  Hopefully, in the end, the debate and action around health care reform will lead to something better if not good.  Get educated, get noisy, get involved and help make the change yours.

Let’s All Pay Homage To The Health Care Fairy

To the average Joe or Joleen this entire health care debate is beginning to sound like what dogs hear when humans talk.  Blah, blah, blah, Free Health Care, blah, blah, blah.  I think folks think the government Health Care Fairy is going to flit in, sprinkle fairy dust, and they’ll be able to sleep at night knowing no matter how much lard they put in their bodies orhow much quality couch time they spend, when their body starts to disintegrate, The Fairy’s got ‘em covered.

PT Barnum once said, “there’s a sucker born every day,” or if he didn’t he’s been given credit for saying it for a zillion years.  Let me tell you folks, health care reform without personal responsibility is going to be about as successful as trout fishing, or any kind of fishing for that matter, in the Dead Sea.  Any decent reform initiative will have personal responsibility  as a corner stone, and that will include things like carrots or sticks for screenings, basic health surveys, health education and healthy lifestyles, financial responsibility through things like HSAs and the like. 

I think it would not be prudent to put all your colored eggs in The Health Care Fairy’s basket.  The best caregiver for for you, is you, with the support of the health care system and hopefully some solid health care reform.  

I think I’ll go eat a piece of fruit and maybe take a bike ride.

123 InkJets and $11.39 For Me And My Health Savings Account

So if you are trying to learn about Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) please pe, ruse the various blogs posted on this site or click on the links above and get an easy to understand education about HSAs.

If you are beyond the basic education and now trying to find creative ways to fund your HSA, then listen to my story…..

My kids just got through with school and in that final crush of final projects and exams I took a rash of spit from my kids and wife because right when we needed full printer mobilization.  We had no color ink in either printer and the black ink cartridge in one of them was making reports look like those bar codes on any box or can you see at the grocery store.  Hey, I’m a thrifty guy, and once the cartridges got so bad that they wouldn’t even print when I refilled them with ink myself, well, I just kind of let them go.  Speaking of letting go, what do you suppose ever happened to all those Ditto Machines that produced all those lovely blue documents back when some of us were in school.  Probably in the same place where all my non-flat screen TVs will be 20 years from now when I finally let them go.

Anyway, now that school is out and I am recovered from the verbal beatings, I went to www.myHSArewards.com to see what they had in the way of ink replacement and quickly found 123 Inkjets.  Now, in the spirit of full disclosure, I’m going to tell you here that I am bullish on My HSA Rewards, not only because it it is a terrific way to help put money into ones HSA, but because I helped put the program together.   But check this out.

The last several times I bought printer ink, I did it through vendors on that large auction site that rhymes with “we say,” so after pricing the various assortment of inks I needed on 123 Inkjets I checked to see what I had paid the last time the natives forced me to buy ink.  The 40-70% savings advertised on 123 Inkjets  was just as cheap as what I had paid through  the big auction site, but less hassle.  PLUS because my order was over $55, shipping was free.

So what does this have to do with my HSA?  Well, through My HSA Rewards I got 15% of the purchase in cash rewards into my, My HSA Rewards account which was, drum roll please, $11.39!!!  My HSA Rewards has around 300 other merchants that sell lots of other things besides ink.  If you are looking for an easy way to save, they are an easy way to do it.

Free Our Health Care NOW! And Your HSA Can Help.

Since I stepped out of the Corporate morass a couple of years ago, I have become much more tuned in to my health and to reading my body.  No, I don’t have the Constitution tattooed on my body, I just pay closer attention to it.

While riding my bike this morning I was reading the latest edition of Forbes magazine (”free” courtesy of my airline miles–hey at least they are good for something), I came across Steve Forbes brief article encouraging anyone and everyone to sign the “Free Our Health Care NOW” petition.  It is a grass roots campaign to enable little people like me and maybe you to make our collective voices heard.

After the bike ride I perused the petition at freeourhealthcarenow.com and signed it.   It is logical, pragmatic, and supports a position that I too believe in.  It is short, it is simple, it takes less than 5 minutes to read, digest, and sign. 

Check it out, sign it if it makes sense and forward it to a friend.

www.freeourhhealthcarenow.com

Your HSAcan help free you too.  Please check out any of the other posts on this blog or check out www.hsaeducator.com  and learn more.