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["clanSkeen" <sgian AT planetc.com>]

> > I have earlier noted that the money I save by not buying health insurance 
> > is partly spent on buying organic foods.

>  The last time I checked, a high deductible policy would run us close to 
> $375 per month, probably in the $400-$450 range now.

Knowing what we know now of days, and if the stats are to be relied upon, 
there's a great deal to be said for the above view of 'health insurance'. 
This past year has seen a number of our friends and relatives taken away 
with the type of disease one has health insurance for.  The medical 
intervention did little for any of them, and in a couple of cases, it killed 
them.  The statistics for what the medical industry can do for such diseases 
paint a dismal picture.

Yet on the other hand relatively cheap (if not profitable) investment in 
prevention statistically pays great returns.  First, this year I was struck 
with the nature of the diseases that took my friends and their habits.  Five 
uncles and my father-in-law had died of lung cancer (or clinical pneumanosis 
from the radiation) and all were heavy smokers.  The uncles and my father of 
the same generation but who didn't smoke are all alive ... except one uncle 
who died this year from throat cancer - he was a dedicated tobacco chewer. 
My mother and five aunts are healthy (in their 70's and 80') but two are in 
the last stages of liver cancer.  Those two took liver toxic statins and 
other drugs for minor circulatory problems, the five declined the medicines. 
And the list goes on and on.  The overweight  were taken by diabetes and 
stroke, the inactive by heart disease, the stressed and worried by cancer, 
the hypochondriacs by all the prescription medicine.

Compare the statistics of how much good it does you to have the latest and 
best medical intervention in case of a catastrophic disease and how much you 
stack the odds of not getting the disease in the first place by diet, 
exercise, and avoiding stress and worry .... and if it's a matter of 
either/or (which for many of us it is) and the money and time is better 
spent on preserving your health rather than wrecking it so you can have 
insurance when you inevitably get sick.


James