Reply #189: This would be a remarkable story except for two points:

[Fla Dem]

1.) You imply you have never received anything but "minuscule benefits". You retired at 60 (cited in downstream post), which means you are either a remarkably healthy individual or lucky. Usually by 60, even the healthiest individuals have required some medical care or hospitalization; broken bones, pneumonia, appendicitis, gallstones, infections, etc. Also, if you are a family man, wife/kids.....did the 100K to 200K you paid in taxes cover their health care as well? And if so, then you certainly received benefits when your child(ren) were born. And if you have/had a family were they as healthy as you? No childhood disease and the like? Just asking.

2.) You mention you began working in 1959. So as of 2009 that's 50 years. If over 50 years the average you paid in taxes for health care was $3000 per year that's $150,000 for 50 years of health care. That my friend is a bargain. You say you would opt for choice. If given the choice and you elected an "American Style Health Insurance Benefit" you would have paid much, much more over those 50 years, plus co-pays and deductibles. One major medical hospitalization will eat up that $150,000 in the blink of an eye. Had you opted for No insurance at all, then I guess based on your claim of minuscule medical need, you certainly would have been ahead in the game. But then, when the time comes you need medical care, who would pick up your costs? Those of us that do pay for insurance, that who.