Insurance companies suck. Okay, to be fair, maybe they are just the purest form of “sell your mother down the river for a buck” capitalism. They’ve bypassed the whole supply and demand concept unless you make it supply and demand-that-you-have-it-in-order-to-live. Want to drive? You need insurance. Feeling sick? Better have insurance. Prefer not to have your mortal remains go to medical science? Insurance. Insurance has also gotten to the point where only the people that don’t really need to use it can get it. You give them money and don’t make any waves and they let you live your life. Perhaps I should revise my earlier statement – they might just be the purest form of “take your mother for a ride” racketeering.
Insurance companies use what they call underwriters, which I suspect is just a fancy term for “bookie”, to set the odds on what kind of policy you can purchase. Health insurance is by far the scariest to go without because, let’s face it, we all get sick sooner or later. In this arena you have group plans and individual plans. If you are in what’s called a group plan then the insurance companies can’t turn you down, they can just try and jack your rates up a bit. A group plan means you’re basically working for someone else with a lot of other insured members. I believe the government only enforces this rule on the insurance companies because they like the concept of manageable herds of cattle as opposed to individual self-employed rogue strays – but that’s a story for another time. For the insurance company it’s like buying a “lot” at an auction for an experienced bidder; the bad pieces you’re forced to take are usually outweighed by the good pieces and, a lot of times, you can still manage to cover your costs on the bad ones.
Individual plans are tailor made for Hitler’s master race. Perfect body. Perfect health. Perfect progeny. You’re signed up. The rest of the everyday shmoes, like myself, who don’t qualify for the group plan safe harbor are made to feel like it’s a privilege to be accepted by an insurance plan that only takes half our income as a premium and still makes us pay for most of our own charges. I believe the only things they fully cover are diseases known to be eradicated from the face of the planet. I feel pretty good about my Black Plague coverage. Heaven help me, though, if I get a bad case of the flu. And for you women out there who might want an individual health insurance policy, don’t even think about pregnancy. You’d have a better chance with an Ebola virus rider! Insurance companies will even turn down the husband on an individual-only policy if his wife is pregnant. They can’t take the chance that the soon-to-be-father might add the child to his policy. If the child is a blonde, blue-eyed Aryan after birth, they might be willing to consider it. For a fee.