REMEMBERING ME

I’m celebrating another birthday this weekend. Well . . . celebrating may not be the word. We celebrate our 16^th when we get our driver’s license and our 21st when we drive to the bar. But this is 65. I do have that strange feeling of  “Whew! I made it.” I expected that I would not be looking forward so much to things ahead. But, I have two beautiful grand kids and, I have just recently been given an opportunity to be a part of a new business with a bright future. For that I am very grateful

The other thing that tends to happen when you reach these high numbers on you birthday cards is a desire to look back over your life. And . . . that’s exactly what I have been doing lately. Here are a few highlights.

I remember when I was 5 and there was politics on TV. I understood somewhat about the elections and I asked my sister who she thought would win the presidency. She said “Everyone knows it will be Eisenhower.” If everyone knows that, I thought, why bother with the election?

I remember Saturday morning TV. Fury, Sky King and The Lone Ranger. How cool was that?

I remember when I was 7 my family’s retail store burned down. Till then, I didn’t know my dad could cry.

I remember when I was 8, Khrushchev telling us he was going to bury us. That’s when I first learned that people hated free countries.

I remember when I was 9, lighting the ends of my sister’s Tampax and throwing them out an upstairs window. Hey . . . they looked like firecrackers to me. They were all duds.

I remember at 15 watching the flag on the courthouse building drop to half-mast because our President had just died.

I remember at 16 taking driver training and soon after we got our licenses, two of my good friends, one who was in driver training with me, died together in a terrible crash.

Every time I think back to my first love, I smile. She was like the perfect first girlfriend a guy could have asked for. And yes . . . I messed that up.

Then I remember (confession time) using my uncle’s influence to slip me into college early to stay out of the draft.

The rest of my years I spent as a grown-up. There have been happy times, sad times, tough times, glorious times and tragedies. Would I change some things? Of course. Everything? No way.

All in all, I think my life-long friends and family have been my greatest gift. And now, I am going over to my family’s home (grand kids included) to celebrate . . . well yes celebrate, who I am and where I am in my life.

No doubt a few Facebook pictures will soon follow.

 

"AS YOUR PRESIDENT . . . ."

Absolutely no one has asked me the question, “If you were President Chuck, what would you propose we do to make health care more affordable in America?” So I will ask it for me. And here is my answer.

Glad you asked that question, Chuck. I am not surprised you asked, considering you have seen me continually look deep into the bowels of the beleaguered American who is trying to keep up with their health care costs. Let me enumerate:

1. I would institute “Tort Reform”. “But Chuck, I’ve heard that phrase for decades. What does it mean?” In legalese, a tort is considered a civil wrong. In other words, someone is suing someone else for causing them bodily or monetary or mental harm. In the case of healthcare, it usually means a person who is suing a doctor or a hospital for malpractice. The problem is, the awards by insane courts and jury’s have gotten so large that it has drastically raised the healthcare provider’s cost of doing business. This single item is putting such a strain on the economics of healthcare that, if it were controlled, insurance premiums would drop like a rock.
2. I would encourage states to allow outside insurance companies to sell in their state. Why? Because state governments, at the behest of lobbyists, enact insurance mandates requiring all plans in a state to cover, say, acupuncture or fertility treatments. Insurance mandates can raise the cost of premiums by 30-50 percent. If you could buy insurance from another state, where regulations are less onerous, you might not be forced to buy a policy with coverage you don’t need or want. Forced competition is never a bad thing. Again, a significant drop in health insurance costs would be the result.
3. I would institute a “Pool” for uninsured people who have a serious preexisting condition. Not all preexisting conditions would be covered. Why? Because we are trying to make health insurance affordable for everyone. If a person can simply wait until they get sick and then buy insurance, the insurance companies would fail under the financial weight.
4. I would revamp the FDA. Their problems? Too slow to allow drugs to come to market and too fast to slap more restrictions and regulations on drugs, hospitals and doctors. The result? High drug prices. Of course we need to make certain new drugs are safe, but there is a huge, burdensome overreach caused by political maneuvers with drug companies. The American consumer ultimately pays for the game-playing.

That’s it Chuck. “That’s it?” “Will those things really make that much of a difference?”  With absolutely no research or data to back me up, I would say that addressing those four items intelligently and implementing them sanely, would easily cut insurance premiums in half.

And now . . .as your President, I’m going to hop on Marine One and head out to Pebble Beach for a quick round.

God Bless America.

IT'S CRIMINAL

I have stayed relatively quiet on ObamaCare in my blog pages because I was a health insurance agent for many years and I didn't want to sound like a know-it-all.

But now . . . I just can’t keep quiet.

Here’s the deal. Obama’s strategy was to vilify the health insurance industry in nearly every speech he gave touting the virtues of Obamacare. He knew that people blamed the high cost of health insurance on the insurance companies. It is a simple knee-jerk reaction to a much more complicated issue. He actually had a majority of Americans conned into thinking that he was smarter and a better businessman than health insurance companies that have been doing this for decades. When, in reality, he is nothing more than the equivalent of a crooked agent selling promises that can’t be delivered.

In the business of health insurance, the vast majority of outside agents and brokers are honest, fair and willing to do what it takes to fit an insurance plan around their client’s needs and abilities to pay. It is in their best interest since they are routinely scrutinized by the State Insurance Commissioner’s Office. Agents are schooled, tested and trained in serving their clients with honesty and respect. However, there are bad apples in every business and it’s no different in the insurance industry. When you are dealing with a general public that is only moderately aware of how health insurance works, what an agent tells you needs to be the truth. Barack Obama is the epitome of a dishonest insurance agent. The practice of omission of facts and/or “twisting” by an insurance agent is not only cruel, it is illegal. Yet, Obama has become Master of the “bad agent syndrome”. Now the truth is coming home to roost and Americans are in “sticker-shock”.

Maybe this will help the perspective just a bit. There is a, not too hard to figure out, reason why insurance companies do not cover “preexisting conditions”. It is a guaranteed loss for the company. If you were foresighted enough to purchase insurance before you needed it, how would you feel if the agent explained that some people are not that foresighted and your premium is going to have to go up significantly to cover those people or our company will go out of business and you will lose your insurance?

Obama looks like a hero (today) for forcing insurance companies to cover pre-existing conditions. Now the bill is due.

Pay up America.