J. Jonik's view

This is one way to think about mandates. I love the smiley face on the wing.

Close to Home cartoon

Jonik on the corporate web

John Jonik is a whole systems thinker. He's also a very good cartoonist. Turns out he can write as well.

We don't often think about the wider web around health insurance -- how it links to other industries and may even explain some of corporate America's allegiance to health insurance even though it demonstrably hurts their ability to compete globally.

We hope instead that business will decide that health insurance is "the weakest link" and fire it the same way Trump would do.

In "Private Insurance Is Bad for Your Health," Jonik suggests that the safety net for this inept and heartless industry may be stronger than we think.

Private insurers are invariably investors, with what was our health care money, in all sorts of industries, many of them being notorious for causing health problems.

We know, from SEC (Securities & Exchange Commission) material, that top insurers have been or still are multi million dollar investors in cigarette manufacturing! They may also invest in tobacco pesticides and even the firms that supply carcinogenic radioactive (!) fertilizers to tobacco growers...not to mention chlorine interests that are responsible for presence of dioxin in the smoke from adulterated products, agricultural firms that supply pesticide-contaminated crop ingredients, paper/pulp, sugar, burn accelerants, and flavorings/sweeteners/aromas etc from pharmaceutical firms.

It's a good point. Jonik concludes, "The United States public is capable of taking care of its own health system, as citizens of other countries manage quite well, without the questionable 'help'...thanks anyway...from unnecessary, parasitic private insurers."

Amen.

Why we don't have universal health care

Ampersand runs in Zmag. Go to Zmag to see it bigger. By Barry Deutsch.

Tom Tomorrow in a bad mood

If you believe that a free-market health insurance system makes sense...

A doctor explains why

This was at Glorfindel of Gondolin: Medical Archives, written by a young doctor who seems to have a lot of debt from school and a good sense of humor. Here's part of a post he wrote about HSAs, from a couple years ago:

I've decided that as a healthy young person, I resent the elderly and the sick. They're the reason health insurance costs so much! If those people with diabetes, cancer, and other chronic diseases would take responsibility for their own health, instead of relying on the same insurance that I have to pay their medical bills, I wouldn't have to pay so much for my health insurance! Their presence in the same insurance risk pool as me is unfair.

In fact, I'm fed up with the whole concept of health insurance. It's really just a cross-subsidization of the sick by the healthy, and in America we shouldn't have to tolerate these collectivist wealth-transfers. So I'm gonna get myself an HSA!

They're a great way for people like me to stop subsidizing the old and the sick with my hard-earned money. If I go out and buy some health insurance with a really high deductible--more than $1000--then I can go to the bank and open an HSA. I can contribute $2600 or the amount of my deductible, whichever is less, every year to my HSA tax-free! The money rolls over each year, and I can withdraw it to pay for medical bills without any tax liability. That way, if I ever sprain my ankle playing Ultimate Frisbee, I can use the money in my HSA to pay the bills. But the best part is, I won't be in the same insurance risk pool with all those costly old and sick people anymore! They're not going to go for a plan with such a high deductible--it would cost them way too much, seeing as how they're always going to see their doctors for med refills and chronic pain.

Now, I know that when I drop my regular insurance plan and get an HSA instead, I'll be driving up the price of the old plan. But I don't really care. This is America, and if the old and the sick can't afford their insurance premiums, that shouldn't have anything to do with me.

Don't Be Silly!

Together with the data — the overwhelming data that shows that our system is the most expensive and yet the only one in the industrialized world that doesn't cover all our citizens — this may the strongest argument for a single-payer system.
We are the only people in the industrialized world who pay out the nose for the privilege of playing roulette with our children's health.
Sure, Americans aren't followers. But is it really American to stubbornly stay the course with a deadly, incompetent plan, just digging ourselves in deeper and deeper?
My apologies. That was poorly argued.
Just because we also did it in Iraq doesn't make it American.
(Thanks, Dave, for the graphic.)