Reply #66: Right you are. The $30,000 just spent by my insurance company...

[puebloknot]

...to zap a kidney stone (and that's a minor outpatient procedure compared to many others) would have put me under forever if I'd had to pay it myself.

The first insurance company in the country, Blue Cross, was formed by a group of teachers who wanted to share their risk. The first thing they teach new insurance agents (I was one) is this idea of 100 people contributing to the pot; statistically only a few will get sick and need to draw on the fund. The rest pay for years and never "get" to take advantage of it -- because they don't need it. It's a nonprofit scheme. To some it's a *SOCIALIST* scheme!

The insurance companies have distorted that idea into a profit-making scheme. They start a group, then cancel a group when the claims ratio gets too high. They can't just cancel an individual, but they can cancel a whole group. And then they can turn around and offer group coverage to only the healthy ones in that group. Think I'm making this up? It happened to me!

Another thing I praise in Kucinich: He's talking about preventive care, attention to diet, exercise, stress, the *known* things that cause illnesses. To pill-popping mainstream America, those things are now in the realm of "Moon Beam" Kucinich's way out wacko ideas for the good life.