Next to religion, (the tactics of which it very closely resembles), it’s the world’s biggest scam and, like many things where exorbitant profits can be gleaned, Americans have honed its abuses to an algorithmic science.  Like preachers, insurance salesmen are masters at convincing people that they have something that you may not need right now, but you will surely be glad you’ve got if/when you face eternal damnation or an inoperable brain tumor.  There’s car, homeowners’, liability, malpractice, disaster and the big daddy, medical insurance, each touted to save you from catastrophe by simply paying premiums into an invested pool with the promise of coming to your rescue when fate’s fickle finger points your way.  But…as any pointee will attest, the promise comes with page upon page of small-print exceptions and exclusions and rarely ends in a satisfying settlement, while insurance companies roll along as some of the most profitable on the planet.

Access to health care in the US, unless you are among the small percentage of those who can afford it on their own, is almost entirely distributed and manipulated by Big Insurance.  Policies vary to the extreme, doctors are forced to join groups and accept fees that require them to seek more patients than they can adequately treat, drugs are priced and made available based on profit margins rather than necessity and efficacy, and wellness provisions are minimalized since they don’t feed the bottom line as fluidly as other, often frivolous, procedures.  Making access to health a for-profit enterprise, is just plain stupid and still exists only because the deep, deep pockets of the uber-lobbied insurance industry has purchased enough political clout to “insure” the ever-deepening of those pockets.

It all makes me sick and it’s fucking with my mental health, but I’m sucking it up on my own because my insurance doesn’t cover such things…dick pills, cold sculpting, hair plugs – YES…sanity – not so much.