Healthcare

Watching as we see our government prioritizing Israel and Ukraine before healthcare for me and my neighbors is really salt in the wound, especially for a small business, where healthcare benefits are both necessary and an existential threat to the bottomline and business viability.  I’m not sure whose business grows at a predictable enough clip in order to pay for healthcare premiums that double every 4 years but if my predicament is any fair sampling, it doesn’t pave the way for restful night’s sleep.  It’s frankly ridiculous.

I inhabit, and work in, a rarified space of affluence and wealth, which I have no regrets or guilt about - I know I’ve worked my tail off to get my share and have taken gigantic risks to achieve it.   I’m pretty sure my clients haven’t been handed their wealth either.  That being said, I also inhabit and work in a space where people struggle with health care, rents, gas, college, homeownership - and frankly, these people are being suffocated by the American Experience.  The economic and opportunity boot is squarely on their necks.  That’s not the way it used to be.\

Which brings me around to something I noticed with my healthcare now that I’ve used it for the first time the past two years.  By ‘used’ meaning I had $6k-$10k of healthcare expenses - last year for my son’s elbow surgery, and this year for my shoulder surgery.  1, it worked pretty well, the mechanics of it, the doctors, the experience.  2, might be a coincidence, or maybe not, but both of these run-ins with the healthcare industry and my health care plan ran up charges that ate up all my deductible, and ate up all my out of pocket, and stopped just short of actually having $1 paid by the insurance company.  $8200 - just under, for each of them.   And they happened in separate years, so the cost of one didn’t overlap with the cost of the other.   In the future, I’m going to try overlap our medical needs more strategically!

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Call me paranoid, but it’s hard to think this isn’t somehow a rigged game.

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