$$$Health Care$$$

Well, here it is.  Open enrollment time for health insurance at my job.  Fortunately this year we didn't have to change insurance companies again due to premiums being raised so high.  However, they really seemed to be pushing the HSA (Heath Savings Account) plan this year.  Last year I had looked it over & went for the regular plan even though it cost more.  This year I decided to revisit it since they were pushing for the HSA so hard.  Wow!  What an eye opener.  I cannot believe how much my family's health insurance costs per year compared to what we get out of it.  No wonder these health insurance companies are making such profits.  I would have to say now that the only time in my life I've ever gotten my money's worth was the year I had the plumbing removed.  That year was a costly year for me medically, but the insurance picked up most of the cost.  Of course there were three of us in the office that year with similar surgeries so we had to change companies the next enrollment time because they were going to jack up our rates something like 60%.  I don't think I faired as well the year I had breast cancer.  We had higher out of pocket maximums and ended up paying quite a bit.  Thankfully, I had resources to borrow from to pay these bills, but I can see how one could easily go bankrupt.
Anyway, the HSA plan would save my employer some money, but it sure wouldn't help me any.  It's a great program for a single healthy person, or perhaps even a healthy family.  But for what the deductables are and how it covers prescriptions, it would cost me way too much in the long run.  Sure my employer is very generously putting over half the deductable into the HSA but only by splitting it up monthly over the year.  That doesn't help me pay for my high price prescription now.  I understand why they do it this way and I am in no way criticizing my employer.  My frustration lays with the fact that we have to go through this at all.
Why can't we have single payer universal heath insurance like the rest of the world?  Why do we have to bow down to these greedy insurance companies? 
It's already been proven that the reason it's cheaper to have work done in other countries is because the companies don't have the big health insurance costs.  It could still be administered by the health insurance companies, they just wouldn't be able to buy big yachts and private jets. 
The Republicans and Corporate interests say we don't need regulation...  Hmmm, let's compare heavily regulated China's mining accident to the mining accident we had here in West Virginia.  Which one had a better out come?  China!  That's not to say we have to go clear over to Communism, but something has got to be done about the way corporations are running this country. 
Too bad the non health care corporations don't realize how much they would save not having to pay for insurance.  Of course the bigger corporations probably don't pay as much as my employer per employee because they are part of a bigger pool.  Oh yeah, wasn't that what Obama was working toward?  A pool for smaller companies?  If these Tea Partiers would just listen to him instead of hating for the sake of hating, they just might agree too.
Why can't we all just get along???