Happy New Year! 2008-11-29

Chuck Oates
29 November 2008
Norman, Oklahoma, USA

Happy New Year!
--Xoxoxo, Your Insurance Company

It'll be a really happy new year for the Oates family. I received notice this week that since I've aged up to the 60-65 group and since everyone is getting a 24% (!) price increase for 2009, our major medical health insurance premium will be almost doubling to $2,131.00 (that's per month!) next year. That's a bit over $25K/year. Since Sue and I together make $24K/year total as adjunct math profs., that doesn't leave a lot for extras like food, clothing, and shelter. Actually, the current salaries don't make a whole lot of difference. We could hardly have afforded this when I was earning a six figure salary-plus-bonus at bioMérieux, either.

I suppose I'll spend Christmas vacation re-creating my resume and calling everyone I know to see what, if anything, is available in the world of engineering work in an attempt to cauterize the financial hemorrhaging.

Having bailed out of the teaching business at O.U. in 1976-77 after my graduate fellowship didn't quite cover my house payment, I'm sitting here 30-plus years later in the same fix, only it's health care this time, now that my house payment is a distant memory. You'd think I'd learn after a while, huh?

Have a happy (and solvent) holiday season!

Prof. Oates

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comments:

Chasity	That is astronomical, regardless of what you make now how do they expect ANYONE to pay those rate and keep their head above water! That's insane, but that's what this country has gone to--not that I think government ran health care would be any better but you know what I mean! Posted by Chasity on 29 Dec 08 Monday - 22:58 [Reply to this] [Remove] [Block User]

	Grandpa/Prof. Oates Chuck Oates	I think this is what happens to health care after two or three decades of "all market decisions are right" and "all regulation is wrong" thinking. (Same goes for the financial system, but that's another topic.) Certainly we don't want to go completely the other direction, but when we're paying TWICE as much per person for health care as the leading health care system, that of Sweden, and getting about the same health care results as some of the poorer countries of South America, something's gotta give. The Swedes live longer and have MUCH better infant mortality rates than we do, yet they spend--I believe it was the equivalent of US$7K per person per year on health care, whereas we spend about US$14K per person per year. Our results in longevity and infant mortality are, nonetheless, about equal to that of Bolivia. Wonderful! It's not like there aren't any other systems to model our after, and the Baby Boomer generation certainly doesn't have time to wait (ask me how I know). Let's hope we don't waste yet another decade before we fix our 30-years-broken non-health, non-care system! ---------------------------------- P.S. There's a recent Time magazine article that spells all this out. I came across it, interestingly enough, in my physician's waiting room! --CLO Posted by Grandpa/Prof. Oates on 31 Dec 08 Wednesday - 14:33 [Reply to this] [Remove] [Block User]

	Grandpa/Prof. Oates Chuck Oates	Oops! It's $7K/person/year in the U.S. and half that in Sweden. For discussion similar to that in the Time article, see http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/3/28/1649/04990 . Posted by Grandpa/Prof. Oates on 31 Dec 08 Wednesday - 14:46 [Reply to this] [Remove] [Block User]

Laurie

Wow. The House Leadership protects the insurance industry in Oklahoma while the citizens of Oklahoma, young and old ( respectively) alike continue to struggle with increased premiums and unfair exclusions. Now more than ever, the citizens of Oklahoma need to be heard at the capitol. Elected officials need to listen to what we need and not what is best for the insurance industry. (Read my blog for my information on House maneuvers that protect the insurance industry in Oklahoma) Posted by Laurie on 08 Jan 09 Thursday - 01:51