Why Health Insurance Is *Not* A Good Investment

Friend, if we keep doing what we have always done, we will keep getting the same results we have always gotten. I am trying to stimulate some thinking here... Have you ever considered the costs involved in going to doctors with our all-too-many health problems? I am sure you have noticed that it is extremely expensive! Figures released by the Keiser Foundation reveal that annual health insurance premiums increased last year by 9%. This increase brings average annual cost for health insurance, for family coverage, to over $15,000 annually, in addition to an annual deductible of over $2,000. This sum is either paid for directly to the insurance company by the policy owner or indirectly by an employer to the insurance company. If paid indirectly by an employer, it is still the employee who is paying for it by receiving a lower salary. Most do not realize that. Now let’s put the cost of health insurance into perspective: In some areas of the country the median price of a home is $150,000 and for many it takes 30 years to pay off the mortgage. Add at least another $150,000 for the interest paid on that mortgage and a person ends up paying some $300,000 for their $150,000 home. Yet in that same 30 years, a family pays in health insurance premiums the staggering amount of $450,000 plus $60,000 in deductibles. That is over a half-million dollars. I have a pastor friend, who is paying $12,000 annually in health insurance premiums for just himself and his wife. He pastors a small country church and if it wasn’t for the church providing their home, there is no way they could afford that insurance.

Let's Think About How This Works...

When a person gets sick we ask God in prayer to remove the sickness. When prayers appear to have failed, we go to a doctor who uses medical modalities that often complicate the problem and make matters worse. All of these medical modalities cost an exorbitant amount of money and often end with poorer health. Yet, people have such fear of becoming sick (especially developing cancer) that they are willing to spend huge numbers of dollars for so-called "health" insurance for use in the event they do get sick. But is this huge expense necessary? Or could this tremendous expense be a huge waste of our hard earned money and a hindrance to our health?

Is Health Insurance A Good Investment?

For sure, health insurance is NOT an investment in good health because it has absolutely nothing to do with “good health”. Rather, it has everything to do with “disease and sickness”! You don't collect a time from that health insurance policy as long as you remain in good health. It would much more appropriate to call it “disease insurance” rather than “health insurance”. Nor does Health Insurance have anything to do with preventing disease. It only kicks in after a person gets sick and then it rarely pays the whole bill while the sick person is left to pay the remainder of the bill, the amount depending on what the expense is for and the type of coverage. Nor will national health care bring any better results than the individually carried health insurance policies or the employer insurance policies have brought in the past. Instead, national health care is forcing everyone — whether they want health insurance coverage or not —into a system that has utterly failed to bring health in the past. Also, under national health care, the cost of health care will continue to rise. As costs rise, it will increase employer costs, forcing many companies to eliminate pay raises and pass on more of the medical costs to workers, while many employers say that they, because of the increased costs, will have to stop providing coverage for their employees. What is causing health insurance costs to rise so dramatically? – national health care mandates! President Obama’s national health care plan requires insurance companies to pay for pre-existing conditions and requires insurance companies to extend coverage to children (really adults) until the age of 26. These are things health insurance policies did not cover in the past. This additional coverage, the expenses involved in paying for this coverage, the ever increasing cost of health care, and the increasing amount of sickness people are experiencing are causing insurance premiums to skyrocket. If not changed, national health care will eventually bankrupt our nation.

Something Needs To Change

In the May 2015 Issue of Dr. David Brownstein’s “Natural Way to Health” newsletter we find a most interesting article regarding our present Health Care System:

“It’s a fact: Americans spend too much on health care. While the U.S. makes up 5% of the world’s population, Americans consume more than 50% of the world’s pharmaceuticals. We spend more on healthcare than the next nine biggest spenders combined, including Japan, France, China, UK, Italy, Canada, Brazil, Spain and Australia. “That might be tolerable if we were getting more ‘bang for our buck,’ with better health indicators than countries that spend less. But on nearly every health indicator monitored by the World Health Organization (WHO) – including infant mortality and life expectancy – the U.S. finishes either last or near last. “What exactly does paying the most for healthcare get us? Compared to every major Western country, the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate and U.S. men and women have shorter lifespan. “If our elected leaders (both Republicans and Democrats) were doing their jobs, they would be calling for an overhaul to our overpriced, poorly performing medical system.”

Can The Problem Be Solved?

Here are some ideas I would like to present... 1. Higher Deductibles I sold a health insurance policy for NASE, the National Association for the Self-Employed, from 1980 until 1986. Of the 1,200 insurance agents selling this policy for the NASE, most years I was the lead salesman. Without lying about what a policy will cover as is so prevalent in the industry, how was I able to be number one in sales for the entire company? I became lead salesman by showing the business owner that by taking a higher deductible; they could more than pay the cost of that higher deductible if they got sick with the money they were saving by paying a lower premium. While most insurance agents were pushing a $100 deductible, I was suggesting a $1,000 or even higher deductible. That made a lot of sense to the small business owner then, and I believe it makes sense today. In the event of a catastrophic health problem, most small business owners can come up with the deductible as long as the policy picks up and pays for the potential catastrophic bill. In today’s dollars, the $1,000 deductible I was promoting in the early 1980’s would probably be a $10,000 deductible today. 2. An Interest-Bearing Account Others, though risky in the beginning, could take that $15,000 insurance premium (or whatever the premium amount might be each year) and place it in an interest bearing account (an untouchable account except for medical expenses). If they went the first year without any sickness or injury, they would have $15,000 in that interest bearing account to pay medical expenses. After two years without sickness the amount in that account would increase to $30,000 and each year the amount would grow – $45,000 by the third year, $60,000 by the fourth year, and in ten years it would grow to $150,000. Now I already said that this is potentially risky if in an early year something happens, but younger people are not considered high risk. If a person chooses this route, it is important to have some kind of accident insurance as accidents are something we have no control over, as opposed to disease. Sadly, strictly accident policies are hard to find. However, I would not ever consider going the route of no health insurance if I and my family were not on a health promoting and disease preventing diet and lifestyle similar to the Hallelujah Diet. Prevention is the key to having outstanding health! An optimal diet and lifestyle should almost totally eliminate the risk of disease. With the Affordable Care Act fully implemented, this is no longer an option, as all citizens of the United States will be required to carry health insurance. If a citizen ops out of carrying health insurance, there is an increasing penalty with each passing year for not carrying coverage. 3. Christian Medical Expense Sharing Organizations If you are a Christian, there are at least two other options. Both of the following programs require verifiable, local church participation and a signed agreement to live a healthy, Bible-based lifestyle in terms of sexual purity, alcohol consumption, tobacco use, and other conditions. Neither program covers pre-existing conditions except in very rare circumstances. These pre-existing plans were grandfathered in when national health care was mandated, and are accepted by the government as substitutes for national health care policies. "Medi-Share" is a community of more than 50,000 Christians who follow the Biblical model of sharing and paying each other’s medical bills much like the early church did 2,000 years ago. And as a not-for-profit ministry that promotes healthy Biblical lifestyles, participation is affordable. Family policies are currently about $300 monthly (at the time of this writing). Though technically not medical insurance, Medi-Share functions much like traditional health insurance with premiums and deductibles, with medical payouts coming from a pool of member premiums. Samaritan Ministries is another viable option, Members pay a premium each month (around $400 per month) but unlike the traditional deductibles of Medi-Share, the most any health incident would cost the member is about $300. Instead of paying into a pool, member premiums are paid to each other, based on instructions in a monthly newsletter. For example, one month you may be instructed to send your $405 check to Mr. Jones in California; the next month, to Mr. Smith in New York. If something happens to you as a member, simply collect bills, fill out a form, and send it to Samaritan Ministries to determine if the expenses are eligible to be shared among members. If so, that person receives checks and notes of encouragement from other members around the country.

How I Have Dealt With My Health and Health Insurance

As you already know, nearly 40 years ago, after being told I had cancer at the age of 42, and after refusing all medical treatments for that cancer, I adopted God’s Genesis 1:29 diet. As a result of making that diet change, healing began almost immediately, and within a year my cancer was gone without any medical intervention or expense. It wasn’t long after that experience I realized I could control my own health by eating a healthy diet and living a healthy lifestyle. That led me to think that if I could control whether I got sick or not by simply eating a healthy diet, why should I continue to pay for an extremely expensive health insurance policy I would no longer have need of? That is when I dropped my health insurance coverage! For almost 40 years now, I have neither carried nor had need of health insurance. You may think that was a crazy thing to do, but I figure my savings, by not carrying health insurance over 40 years, to be well over $200,000. Since age 65 (I’m currently 81 years old) I have been covered for in-hospital expenses by Medicare Part A, for which I pay nothing, but have not had any use of that coverage because I haven’t been sick and had the need to be an inpatient. But I refused Medicare Part B which costs at least $1,200 each year (or more depending on income), and covers out-of-hospital expenses. But Part B doesn’t cover all out-of-hospital costs and to cover those expenses not paid by Part B, an additional supplement is necessary, at additional cost, which I do not carry. But what I do each year is have a complete blood profile taken. Though I feel great and appear to be in excellent health, a blood profile reveals what is not obvious. As of my last profile, all tests revealed I was in a perfect or near perfect range and my PSA was 1.89. Normal is anything below 4. Life Extension, for a yearly membership of $75.00, offers a monthly health magazine and discounts on blood tests. Once a year, from March 30 – June 1, they offer either a Male Life Extension Panel or a Female Life Extension Panel for $199 (reg.$400).

“For the past 35 years, the Life Extension Foundation has stated that the most important step one can take to prevent disease cannot be found in a bottle of pills. The cornerstone of any preventive health care program is annual blood screening. Proactive blood screening can help you greatly reduce your risk of disorders such as heart and kidney disease, stroke, liver conditions, anemia, and diabetes. Plus it’s particularly valuable in helping you prevent and treat symptoms associated with hormone imbalance, such as fatigue, memory impairment, bone loss, weight gain, and depression. Blood testing remains one of the most important things you can do for yourself and your loved ones. More than any other measure, annual blood testing holds tremendous potential to protect both yourself and your loved ones.”

Prevention is the key to good health... and I think health insurance is NOT a good investment. You've heard my thoughts... what are yours? Next week, the good Lord willing and if the creeks don’t rise too high we will return with another exciting issue of the Hallelujah Health Tip. Trust you will join us and that you will share these Health Tips with friends and loved ones.