OpinionMarch 25, 2012

Commentary Bill Hall

Bill Hall is editor emeritus of the Tribune's Opinion page. His email address is wilberth@cableone.net,
Bill Hall is editor emeritus of the Tribune's Opinion page. His email address is wilberth@cableone.net,

They have been called the young indestructibles, young adults in the prime of life who are pretty darned sure they are immortal and don't need medical insurance.

Life can have wicked surprises for people who don't have insurance. When you suddenly decide you need insurance, it's usually too late. Insurance doesn't get your attention until you have run up a large and unexpected medical bill.

Insurance is a strange purchase. You buy it hoping you never get your money's worth. If you didn't get your money's worth this year, it's because you didn't get seriously sick or hurt.

However, if people who shun insurance protection are called the young indestructibles, then most of the rest of us should be called the old suckers because we end up not only buying our own protection but paying for the medical care of those who walk the tightrope of life without an insurance net beneath them.

The young indestructibles don't insure themselves because they feel just fine and they haven't stopped to realize that, at any age, we are all incapable of remaining whole after flying through a windshield or losing the cancer lottery.

Mind you, one corner of my old brain can understand how the young indestructibles are willing to take their chances. It's similar to the attitude of people who insist they have the right to decide for themselves whether to take their chances without seatbelts and motorcycle helmets. They're feeling lucky.

But there is nothing physically or financially tidy about naive insurance virgins spreading their gory remains over the public highways. Their illnesses and accidents tend to run up horrendous medical bills that the rest of us get to subsidize.

If you have no insurance and a sudden medical bill is too huge for you to pay, then doctors and hospitals - if they are to remain solvent - must raise their standard charges by enough to cover the loss. That means the price of the insurance most of us buy, often with the generous help of employers, will rise.

Somebody has to pay for the wounds of the young indestructibles and that somebody is the old responsibles, among others. But if you are an insurance dodger, please don't tell me that you are willing to pay every last cent for your own accident injuries or illnesses if you should happen to be a tad destructible after all. Maybe you can pay the full bill without insurance if you are talking about a broken ankle or a bout of prickly heat. But medical costs can suddenly explode at any time of life.

A couple of years ago, my heart stopped from a clogged artery. The doctors reamed out the artery, and I'm feeling swell now, thank you, but at a considerable cost. Suffice it to say, the 30-minute medical helicopter ride alone was $18,000. And the rest of the patching and hospitalization was several times that.

Daily headlines, straight to your inboxRead it online first and stay up-to-date, delivered daily at 7 AM

Fortunately, I had never assumed I was indestructible. Throughout my life, I and my generous employers have covered me with medical insurance. And now, in retirement, I am covered by Medicare (Thank you, America) and by a supplemental insurance policy that my wife and I buy.

But the price of our insurance is increased each year by several million people who can afford insurance but refuse to buy it. Consequently, some of the old responsibles are irked when young indestructibles (and some old cheapskates) complain that Obamacare will "mandate" that they provide themselves with medical insurance.

I know the feeling. We, the old responsibles, also have a mandate. We are mandated by compassion and fiscal reality to help pay the medical insurance expenses of the young and old whiners who now sponge off the rest of us.

Granted, some people - the unemployed and the underemployed, for instance - can be truly incapable of providing their own medical insurance. But the new law covers their costs totally or in part. It doesn't expect to get blood out of a turnip.

Those of you who make a good living and yet continue to dangle the sharp sword of your irresponsibility over my insurance bills are not bad people. But you are unaware of your fiscal clumsiness to an aggravating degree.

Meanwhile, let me say something to all you millions of people who have joined me in taking responsibility for our medical insurance over the years, including Medicare:

Thanks for the chopper ride. I couldn't have afforded it on my own.

---

Hall is editor emeritus of the Tribune's Opinion page. His email address is wilberth@cableone.net.

Daily headlines, straight to your inboxRead it online first and stay up-to-date, delivered daily at 7 AM