ANDRES/CAPRETTA: Realistic options for the uninsured

So health insurance is another entitlement? Why is it, when I take my car to the mechanic, my auto insurance doesn't cover the repair? Yet, when I take my body to the Dr., the first question I'm asked is, "are you insured?" I am old enough to remember the days when there was no such thing as health insurance. When a Dr. would come to the house. When a visit to his office was $10. Cash. No paperwork. No questionnaire to be filled out. No HIPPA disclaimer. Seems to me that the "system" that is so broken is best at serving its servants. The Dr. gets paid. The hospital gets paid. You think the insurance company is a charity? Adam Smith be damned! "They" can fix our health care "problems" better than any unseen hand. I've looked at my own health care costs. After all that's said and done, I'm a contributor to the system. My insurance premiums and co-pays cost me far more out-of-pocket than the amounts my insurance company reports I would have paid if I bought my medications and paid my Dr. directly. Where's the benefit to me? That's simple. I have health insurance in case I REALLY need it. It's worth every penny under those circumstances. But that same health insurance should NOT be covering every Drs. visit and aspirin.

Another Band-Aid approach. So this plan helps job-seekers. Maybe someone else will have a plan for volunteer firemen who can't get insurance. How about a plan for expectant fathers (another high-risk group according to underwriters). What about the over-qualified (over age 55) executive whose only viable future is self-employment? What about the divorcee who can't be carried on her ex-husband's policy? College and grad school students? These cherry-picking ideas will only postpone a real solution, which ultimately must evolve into some form of centralized money pool, run either by government or a corporation owned by all Americans.