Whitney issued new wellness guidance today advising Americans to complete several grounding exercises before opening any document containing the words premium, deductible, or amount you owe.
“Health begins with regulating the nervous system,” she explained. “Especially when the nervous system has just discovered it owes $12,000 before insurance becomes available.”
Her recommended protocol begins with ten deep breaths, adequate hydration, and placing both feet firmly on the floor before logging into an insurance portal.
Anyone viewing a family plan should have a trusted friend nearby. Fancy Pants attempted the exercise while reviewing health insurance options.
“Why does the inexpensive plan have a deductible approximately equal to a used Subaru?” he asked.
Whitney reminded him to return attention to his breath.
Janet read the explanation of benefits and became visibly agitated by the phrase allowed amount.
Marvin wanted to know why a medical procedure could simultaneously have a price, a negotiated price, an insurance price, a patient responsibility, and another number apparently created during a lunar cycle.
Bruce and Frankie announced a new wellness retreat called Healing Through Not Looking at the Bill, featuring sound baths, cold plunges, and unopened envelopes placed ceremonially into a drawer.
Simone rejected the entire program.
“If healthcare causes this much stress,” she said, “perhaps healthcare should come with healthcare.”
Whitney asked everyone to notice the irony without judgment.
By sunset, Fancy Pants had completed twenty minutes of box breathing and finally opened the bill.
He stared quietly at the total. Whitney leaned closer.
“What are you feeling?”
Fancy Pants folded the paper.
“Out of network.”
As a Senior citizen on Medicare, through an advantage plan, I had to start a monthly plan of payment for the "patient responsibility" part of the cost of my recent surgery for cancer. I feel their pain!😏
The real question is who is health care insurance actually designed to protect? The patient or the health care insurance provider? I think that we know the real answer.