by Ray Newman, radio and television commentator, attorney, educator, author

Saturday, March 27, 2010

OUT OF FOCUS

Years ago, when I first began working full time, part of my "pay" was in the form of medical and life insurance paid for by the company. I had no interest in having insurance...and as time proved true, didn't need it...and asked the company owner if he would give me additional cash equivalent to the premium he was paying for my insurance instead. "Nope." Would he give me half the cost of those premiums, so that we would both wind up with additional money? "Nope, it's a great program, you have to be in it."

A recent report by a renowned financial organization says that a 65 year old couple will need a quarter of a million dollars at retirement to cover future health insurance and anticipated health costs. If so, most people will have little to spend on life and living.

Misguided focus. The prime object of life is not to deter death but to maximize the experience of LIFE. Morality is not a code of anti-death conduct, it is a code of pro-LIFE conduct. The alternative man faces is LIFE and death, not death and death. The making of health care as the #1 issue in the country the past few months is an absurdity. What happened to jobs and war?

Our focus should be om life and how to live it, how to maximize the passion and joy and exhilaration of it...and not on death and how to avoid it. The key reason to accept a job offer ought not be its health benefits but its LIFE benefits. A quarter mill can take you once or twice or three times 'round the world, to touch and be touched by the as yet unknown and unseen, to fulfillingly share time with those you love, to enrich your LIFE...or it can pay for a plethora of visits to a doctor's waiting room and a shelf full of medications that may or may not extend your life a few years longer and that will enrich insurance companies and the medical profession? Why do I think the first option will be of significantly greater benefit to most people and their life expectancy than the second?

It certainly will be to mine.

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