So if you like your healthcare, you can keep it.  That was the LIE of the year, oh, last year.  Many people didn’t feel it at the time personally, as it took a year for that LIE to trickle down through employers, HR departments to individual situations, and here we are, Oct. 2014… I now have to make a change to my work-provided healthcare… the explanation… changes due to the ACA.  Ok, fine, I have to pay more for less insurance.  I knew it was coming even before the party line vote made that the law in our great democracy, and well before the POTUS unilaterally amended the law to many times to remember.  So I’m paying more… Its inflation, it’s funding R&D, but it’s also a subsidy to those who can’t pay for things they need.  I’ve been to the hospital and paid $50 for a couple pills of Advil.  The Hippocratic Oath meets the cost of society I guess.  Not fair, but understandable.  And life isn’t fair, so I’m kind of used to it.

To somewhat offset that screwjob, I am able to sign up for a Health Savings Account (HSA).  For those of you who don’t know what an HSA is, it is a type of checking account that you fund with pre-tax dollars that you can spend on QUALIFIED medical expenses.  I previously had tried out a similar type of account called a Flexible Spending Account (FSA), where you fund with pre-tax dollars and spend on QUALIFIED medical expenses, the only difference being that with a Flex account, what you don’t spend at the end of each year, you lose.  That was for me, as well as countless other anecdotal horror stories, a strategy I quickly abandoned since I was finding that a Doctor would tell me my son needs service XYZ, and then a service provider handling my FSA would tell me that service XYZ isn’t qualified, and so not only was I out of pocket real cash (never mind time/frustration trying to fight this ridiculous process) , but I then lost what I didn’t spend that I had pre-funded into the account at the end of the year.  The HSA is a profoundly better deal, since it allows you to carry over any unused dollars to future years, so if you try to use your money on something today, and it gets turned down, at least you can try to use it again next year on something that might be allowable.

But here’s the kicker to me… when I brought up my frustration at having to submit receipts and get reimbursed for medical expenses QUALIFIED by the FSA or HSA… apparently they can now give you a debit card that is linked to your account, and the debit card is smart enough to know what is allowable and what isn’t.  No more receipts or reimbursements being denied after the fact, you now know at point of service. 

Why is that a kicker?  Because anyone who was old enough to think for themselves by the year 2000 understands that technology can basically do anything.  I read vote after vote in my home state of Massachusetts, where the Democratic Machine is pro-welfare to such an extent that the legislature can’t even stand up to Welfare Fraud.  They say the technology isn’t there.  Admittedly, I am taking a large leap of faith to grant that those in the Democratic Machine are old enough to think for themselves (probably a terrible assumption given the party line voting records)…. but how is the technology available to limit not only the access to money but SPECIFIC line items for debit cards issued by Fidelity in a vastly more complicated system of medical codes, but WIC cards issued by the state can’t prevent cash from being spent on booze, tobacco, lottery, lobster tails, and titty bars?  How?  We look at WasteBook produced by Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, and we see that money is spent on crazier things. 

I know a lot of right leaning folks that would gladly pay more taxes, if they could feel good about what their tax dollars were being spent on.  It doesn’t take many stories about fraud and abuse to turn people like this off to the idea of raising taxes.  But worse is the defiant legislature that refuses to address the problem with technology that the private sector is already leveraging. 

‘Big Jim Slade’ resides in Western Massachusetts.