Hitting the Road, a Road Trip to Pay for Health Insurance

So, an interesting opportunity sprang out of nowhere as I was returning home on Sunday following a really pretty wonderful, long Thanksgiving Weekend with Family . . . A friend out of the blue called me, asking whether I’d be interested in driving his new wife’s father’s car down to Florida for the winter.

The immediate reaction was, “Huh”, followed by, “Gee, that’s a really interesting opportunity.”  It took only about a day to figure out it was a great way to do, i.e. achieve, something really pretty simple and straightforward.

You see, my health insurance just went up this past month, and it went up by 25+%, meaning one month I’m paying roughly $471 and the next (this month, actually) I’m paying $590 . . . per month from here on out.

Now, at the micro level, meaning me (LittleDEM), that’s a lot more money to have to pay one month to the next.  In fact, it’s not really in my budget, which — Thanks to the George Bush Economy — is pretty darn tight these days.

And while I’m having this struggle in my own little world, it would seem to mirror the ongoing and often heated debate we’re having at the macro level as a Nation over Healthcare Reform.

What all this is getting at is that I’m looking for ways to make a living . . . and to pay for health insurance . . . on pretty much equal footing.

My rent is $650 per month and there’s food and incidentals, but quite frankly when you look at my monthly expenses, it’s pretty much ‘Living’ and ‘Health Insurance’ . . . with even less set aside for ‘Food  / Other’.

It’s squirrely to me — I’m paying nearly as much for health insurance as I do to put a roof over my head?!?

And I’m paying more (a lot more, in fact) for health insurance than I do to actually feed myself for a month!?!

So what am I doing about it?  Well, I’m driving my friend’s wife’s father’s car down to Florida because — for saving my friend’s wife’s father the effort of driving down himself — they’re willing to put money into my pocket.

And that money’s going straight to my insurance company.

[Don't interpret any of the above as a gripe or complaint -- It's not meant to be.  The simple fact is this system of how we both care for and insure ourselves when it comes to Healthcare is broken, utterly and thoroughly.  I'm a resourceful and capable consultant and entrepreneur that, thanks to the economic situation, is way underutilized and not making nearly enough money at the moment.  I have to do what I can to cover my costs -- at a minimum -- and factoring into that equation is a very real question of how to pay for something as costly and generally necessary as health insurance.]