August 2009 Archives

...whether they are dealing with Health Care or Real Estate Services.

I was chatting with a friend of mine last week when he admitted that he had been without health insurance since he got out of college. Given that he's a real estate agent, that's not so surprising: as an independent contractor he's on his own regarding health insurance and many in our industry have simply taken their chances, especially when they are young and healthy like my friend Jack.

But as part of the approximately 15% of Americans who are uninsured, Jack has a window on a phenomenon that few of the rest of us ever see: what health services actually cost. You see, Jack was playing softball one Saturday a couple of weeks ago and sprained his ankle. As luck would have it, a member of the team was a physician and offered to take a look at the ankle at his office. After his ankle was wrapped up, Jack offered to pay him.

As I write this, the US government is embroiled in wrangling over how to overhaul our health care system. It seems to me that the system is not so much broken as it is hopelessly dated because as times changed, it never adapted. Our health care system was designed in years past, when you would hold a job for a lifetime. In that world, it made perfect sense to have your health care as a benefit of that job. But how many of us today stay in one job for our entire lives? And what about the growing legions of independent contractors and self employed entrepreneurs who have no access to a "company" plan? Health care tied to one's employment makes about as much sense in today's world as using a typewriter to write a letter.