This is an open letter to my American cousins.
I made a mistake,
and I want you to avoid it when the time will come for you to be like us.
You see, my
friends: I lived with our Canadian government “financed and operated” health
insurance plan for nearly six decades, not bothering for a moment analyzing it
in detail so as to make the best use of it.
I mistakenly
believed that the money the government collects in the form of taxes to pay for
health insurance, is like a premium that the government collects to pay for the
policy. That is, the policy is the guarantee that should I or any citizen
suffer a health “accident,” the policy will pay to make us whole again, and let
us go when all’s well. All this being done in the same way that a car insurer
pays for the repair of an old jalopy.
This being the
colossal mistake – which I discovered the situation to have been as time passed
– caused me the unnecessary damage I could have avoided if only I knew. The
essential result of my mistake had been that every time I felt I suffered a
small case of “disrepair,” I neglected to talk to my caregiver because I
thought I had “better” things to do than run to a clinic to see a doctor or –
heaven forbid – be sent to hospital for an extended stay.
Little did I know
then that the cumulative effect of the little mistakes I neglected to take care
of, will become one or more big mistakes that will eventually take a serious
toll on me. That’s the regrettable result I have now reached, having thought of
health insurance in the same way that I thought of car insurance.
Stated simply, I
was proud of the Canadian System that’s protecting me – which by all accounts –
amounted to being universally considered as one of the best in the world. And
so, the truth was that I fell victim to my own smugness, waiting for something
big to happen to cash in on my accident. In turn, this realization is what forced
me to finally analyze the system in depth, and work to figure out where exactly
I went wrong, as well as to what I can do to help others avoid my colossal mistake.
Here is the
bottom line: The first thing we need to do, is avoid replacing one state of
smugness by another state of smugness. Yes, we are not cars that can be
repaired by “collision mechanics,” but are spiritual beings as well. In fact,
for the purpose of clarity, even this reality can be viewed as beside the point
for now – but only for now. The important part of this analytic exercise being
that the emerging new point makes us realize that when we pay for health
insurance, we pay for two components, not just one.
Like car
insurance, a component of the premium we
pay, is strictly dedicated to making us whole if and when we find
ourselves – suddenly or developmentally – incapable of performing at a high
enough level. But unlike car insurance, another component of the premium is
dedicated to doing periodic maintenance so as to keep the body and soul of the
individual in a high state of performance. In fact, that’s where they need to
be to fulfill our duty as human beings.
We were not
designed as a piece of planned obsolescence – here today to fulfil a task and
disappear tomorrow – thus be replaced by an identical piece or an improved one.
No, that’s not what we are. We were designed with a physical body that can only
take a certain amount of battering before succumbing to the ravages of time. But
while fulfilling this task, the body sustains and nurtures an inventive spirit
that’s intended to leave behind a rich legacy of creativity. It is one that connects
our past ancestry to a future evolution that will maintain us alive all the way
to a never-ending eternity.
When we forget
this reality and neglect to take care of our little pains and sufferings, we
risk catching the big ailment and losing our seat on the journey to the
eternity that’s beckoning us.
I do not intend
to lose my seat, and neither should you, my friend.
Like they say in
the movies, you have only one life to live.