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Article: Cost Versus. Benefits
Our "Cost Versus Benefits " article can be downloaded by clicking here or by clicking on the document to the left. The article is in .pdf format.
Cost Versus Benefits
By Kristi Sweeney, CFP®
Biotechnology is creating a brave new world. We can clone, create, transplant, medicate and cure. And the end is not in sight. Recent tissue advancements will make many of us capable of prolonging life beyond any present expectations. None of this comes to us cheaply.
In fact, it comes at a time when we are trying to figure out how to provide low cost, basic, reasonable health insurance for everyone in The United States.
Insurance is based on the idea that we will share if everyone contributes. We will all dump money into the health insurance pot. I will contribute for you with my premiums while I am healthy if you’ll do the same for me when I am sick. If we try to stay healthy, there will be more resources available for those who are not.
On the other hand, if you use too many finite dollars for your health care, then there will be none for me when I need it. Then we will have to throw in a great deal more money in the pot so there is more to share. How can I participate when I cannot afford my share anymore?
Most of us feel we are due the best possible health care. We want the biggest share of the pot for ourselves and our families. Legislators know this as they vote for the patient’s “bill of rights” in an effort to represent their constituents. Understandably sad stories about terminal patients desiring high tech care, denied by a managed care plan, naturally sway votes.
Hear other stories where families do not even have affordable basic care to provide a decent quality of life. New statistics site that 43 million Americans are without health coverage. Every premium dollar increase discourages more Americans from contributing their share.
Dick Lamm, speaking of American medicine says, “We are inventing the unaffordable and spending the unsustainable. We need to focus limited resources where they will buy the most health for society… The healthcare system can no more afford to do everything beneficial for every patient… we are funding healthcare by an unsustainable yardstick.”