This has taught me that money isn’t everything. Why put so much time and energy from my life into something I don’t enjoy? I am starting school full-time this fall to get into Graphic Design. Sure, the median salary is a little above that $40K level and the potential goes into the six-figures with experience and higher titles.

Many of my friends have the house, kids, mortgage, debt, etc and are chained to their careers they dislike. I do not have any of that and feel incredibly lucky to be able to start over and do what I WANT to do. Is my lifestyle going to change for a while? Yep. Going to be a tough couple years that I wasn’t ready to do at age 20 because I was chasing money instead of happiness.

You won’t get any argument from me that linking health insurance to employment was a very bad thing. See my comment #47. And some government regulation to make portability better would be a good thing.

As for being canceled when you get sick, all the health insurance plans I’ve seen include what is called a “guaranteed renewable” clause that prevents that for as long as the plan continues. The biggest problem there is that the constantly changing regulatory climate often kills off plans. In my State of Washington, there is a strong possibility that new laws will decimate the private market, forcing everyone into a state-controlled plan, including people like me who are very happy with our private plans.

Do you actually have any evidence that insurance companies have been “increasing profits” the way you claim or are you just assuming it? Many insurance plans, like mine, are offered by non-profits. And for-profit insurance companies are no more profitable on average, and possibly less so, than most American business.

If you think your insurance costs have been so low you feel moral outrage and you are willing to pay higher costs, why don’t you? Your local hospital undoubtedly has a charitable giving program you can donate to, in whatever amount you think is right. I’m always amused by the people who say they would be happy to pay higher costs or higher taxes, as if there were some law preventing them from writing a check for whatever they think is right. What they usually mean, and forgive me if I’m wrong, what I think YOU mean, is that you think I should pay higher costs to satisfy YOUR ideas of what I should pay, rather than my own.

I don’t want to ensure that everyone gets “coverage.” There are perfectly rational reasons why some people may choose to gamble on going uninsured. There are people like Bill Gates who can easily afford to self-insure. There are immigrants who who come here from places that HAVE government-provided health care but don’t like it.

We already pay through our taxes for the health care of the indigent, the incarcerated, the elderly, and most children, even for those who can afford to pay for their own care. I see no reason to mess up a system that works very well for me and most of the country, to replace it with a system that works poorly for all of us.

Just remember, with government-run health care, the people who will manage your health care will be the same ones who managed Katrina response, got us into Vietnam, Panama, Somalia, Bosnia and Iraq, supervised Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, do photo-op flyovers of New York City scaring people half to death, force your granny to take her shoes off to get on a plane, and run the Washington D.C. school system.

Personally, I’d like to see some evidence of competence before I put my life in their hands. But it looks like most people are willing to take that gamble, so I’ll be dragged along too. Not happily, obviously.

The other problem for people with pre-existing conditions is that they may get coverage but when it comes time to renew the insurance company drops them. The search for insurance can consume a lot of their time and resources.

OF COURSE health insurance would be cheaper if the insurance company could limit their pool to only healthy people. That is what insurance companies try to do all the time. The evil government has to mandate that insurance companies cover certain care because the companies have been increasing profits by denying coverage to those with pre-existing conditions and by denying requested care when they can get away with it.

I am lucky to have been born with good health but I have friends and family who were not so blessed. My insurance costs have been ridiculously low and my experience very easy compared to theirs. It is just plain wrong. I would be happy to pay higher costs if it would lower others’ and ensure everyone would get coverage.

My jump over $40,000 was almost 10 years ago, though, so I wonder if this number still holds. And I imagine it would vary depending on the cost of living in your area. I also had really good health insurance coverage from my job and I had no kids so I was on the single plan, much cheaper. The family plan that my father has with his job eats up a lot of his income.

Federal law limits insurance plans to individual states, so what is available to me may not be to you.

Mine is an individual plan through Regence (used to be Blue Shield). I’ve had coverage through Regence and its predecessor organizations for 31 years and have loved every minute of it.

Pre-existing conditions may require a waiting period for coverage, unless you’re switching from another plan, or may result in a refusal of coverage altogether – I don’t know. Personally I hope they are allowed to refuse some. Here’s why:

NO plan should offer “reasonable premiums” for people with preexisting conditions who wait until they need coverage before buying it.

The whole point of insurance is for people to pool funds to protect against future risks that will hit some but not all of those covered. In other words, it’s predictable that someone will be hit, but it’s not predictable who will be hit.

Example: Ten people get together and calculate that statistically, one of them will have a stroke, but they don’t know which of them it will be. So they agree to kick in premiums enough to pay for stroke treatment for whomever is the unlucky one. That’s insurance.

A plan that pays for pre-existing conditions is like an eleventh person coming along AFTER his stroke, and saying to the first ten, “Hey, you folks have been paying in your premiums to cover one stroke. I’ve never paid into your pool, but I just had a stroke, you’ve got a pot of money to pay for a stroke, and now I want in on your arrangement.”

It would be the same as trying to buy homeowner’s insurance while the firefighters are fighting your house fire, or buying collision insurance while the tow truck driver is picking up the pieces of your car after a wreck. A very good deal for you if you could get it, but socially a disaster.

And there, in a nutshell, is why health insurance premiums have skyrocketed. Government has loaded on mandates for non-insurance-type events – pre-existing conditions, birth control, annual check-ups, well-baby check-ups, etc., etc., etc. All good things to have, but not unpredictable. The result, much like our current bail-outs, is to reward irresponsibility and punish responsibility.

If we were allowed to have true health insurance (protection against unforseeable events), it wouldn’t be that expensive.

“Until you realize that stuff is never ever going to change your life or improve your circumstances or make you a happier person, it is hard to recognize that money doesn’t matter.”

But what if that stuff DOES make you a happier person? I’m going to leave work at 4:00 today, take the bus home to my 4-bedroom, 2600 sq. ft. house where I’ll crack open a cold beer, turn on my 46″ LCD TV and either watch some HD TV programs on my PVR, or pop in a Blu-Ray. When my wife gets home, we’ll make a homecooked meal, enjoy it over a bottle of wine, and basically do whatever we want with our Friday night, like we do every week.

Now, I’m not sure exactly which part of that story makes me “happy,” – it could be a combination of several factors – but it’s really irrelevant. The end result is, I’m enormously content with my life, and I think a lot of that has to do with the lifestyle we’re able to lead. Of course, we’re frugal in areas that aren’t important to us (I take the bus instead of buying a second car, and we rarely go out for dinner, preferring instead to cook for ourselves), but we spend in areas that enrich our lives, like the big house and the top-notch home entertainment system.

I guess my point is, saying “money doesn’t matter” is baloney. Money matters a great deal. The reason so many people believe they’d be happier if they had more money is because THEY WOULD BE.

There are some good things about a bit more governmental oversight… longer notices before layoffs, ability to have insurance (gov’t yes, but ins. nonetheless), and knowing that losing our little home is not such a worry as a few of my friends in the States would be facing in such a position.

In March 2009, I left a comfy job making $58K/yr to an internship making $45K. I left because what I was doing was not interesting to me and I felt that I was wasting my time (all 7 yrs of it). I dont feel like I did the wrong thing but sometimes the old “I want to buy something to make me feel better” feeling pops up. But now instead of giving in, I realize I simply dont have the extra $$ to do it anyhow. But now the nagging question for me is, “Where did all the money go?” from when I was making $58K…