I’m 25, I’m 5′10″ and weigh 155 pounds. I run every day and go to my yearly check-up. I have never had any medical problems to speak of in my life.I pay a little over 2,000 a year to blue cross blue shield for my medical coverage.

I am the lifeblood of my health insurance company. They make their millions due to people like me. Once people start getting ill and old they are shrugged off onto government programs.

I know several people my age who are on medicaid and have been denied coverage due to their illnesses. They all have MS, a few have glacaoma and one suffers from a blood disease.

No one my age is carried under Medicaid unless they are denied Health Insurance, READ:They are already ill.

Of coarse these programs will not be shining beacons of fiscal superiority, their rolls are packed to the hilt with people with seriously bad medical conditions that incur thousands and thousands of dollars a year.

The private sector sucks up people like me. They then spit out all the seriously sick people since they are not worth the investment.

Our nation’s health care should not be profit driven.

Well, duh Rick,when obama, pelosi, reid are activiely destroying free market insurance…should we expect free market insurance to grow?

There is one sector where premiums aren’t rising….that is in the public sector where health care is handed totally free to government employees….mostly in local government….we have people out this way who have worked for the government and never had to reach into their own pockets for dime to buy an aspirin

I have no problem with tort reform, but it isn’t the core problem you think it is. Presently, about 1/2% of the health care dollar is due to malpractice claims. Some are funky – most are not. Further 33 states limit the amount a plaintiff can win.

“2. Doctors and hospitals that charge one fee to the insurance company and a fee many times larger than the insured fee if a person has no insurance.”

Nobody likes this but that person who comes in without insurance has nobody negotiating a big group deal for them. This could largely go away if we could get everyone covered, right?

“3. State governments that require inclusion of such services as acupuncture, physical therapy, massage therapy, etc. as part of what insurance companies must provide in any given state.”

An interesting point with some merit – but certainly not in the top four of what is causing our problems in health care.

“4. Federal or State government regulations that prohibit insurance
companies from offering insurance nationwide.”

I don’t have a problem with insurers crossing state lines – but I don’t believe it is much of a solution. The four or five big health insurance companies own the large state based insurers. So why would Blue Cross of Michigan be much different when they price a policy for someone in California? The price is going to be pretty darn close to what Blue Cross of California chatges. This is not the solution it is cracked up to be.

5. The presently lucrative insurance industry who can charge whatever they want.”

Well, they can’t charge whatever they want but they do pretty darn well. Don’t you think this number 5 belongs somewhere like number 1?