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Politics : Ask Michael Burke
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To: Knighty Tin who wrote (110415)1/7/2008 8:07:16 PM
From: Freedom Fighter  Read Replies (2) of 132070
 
KT,

With all due respect, IMO your idealism sometimes gets in the way of your ability to understand basic human behavior. True, not everyone is a hypochondriac, but most people are logical and will behave in ways that reflect their own self interest.

Here's a real life example.

A couple of years ago I was having a very difficult time getting any sleep for an extended period of time. It was terrible. I got about 5 hours sleep in a week. My doctor told me it was probably stress related.

If this happened to my father 35 years ago he probably would have had a few beers after work every night hoping to deal with it that way.

Not today. I went to the doctor. When he didn't fix it I went to a sleep specialist. Then I signed up for an overnight sleep test to check for restless leg syndrome, sleep apnea, and a variety of other sleep disorders. Why not? I was insured for all of it. I wasn't sleeping. I felt horrible. I had some symptoms that suggested I might have a disorder etc..

The total bill came to 3.5K.

I found out it was stress and probably should have had a few beers and quit my job. ;-)

There is no way in hell I would have spent 3K for that overnight sleep test if it was going to come out of my pocket.

I happen to think that sleep test is a great thing for many people because it does catch a lot of potentially serious sleep disorders like sleep apnea and others. Our health care system is way better for having it. But the cost of insurance for EVERYONE is higher because we have it (and other things like it). That goes double because marginal people like me are willing to take it. We are insured and it might just catch something that will make our quality of life better.

There are MANY things like that in our system now and many people take advantage of them. The insurance system couldn't care less because they just pass these costs on in the form of higher premiums. 3rd party paying of any type removes all value oriented disciple and thinking from the system.
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