One Percent, Day Six: Will YOU be able to afford insurance next year?

Think you don't need to worry about health care reform because you've got insurance? Think again. According to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, your health insurance premium will soon become unaffordable for you: From 1999 to 2008, health insurance premiums increased by 119% -- more than doubling in nine years. Over that time, wages increased an average of 34%.

Put in real numbers, if in 1999 you earned $50,000, and paid $185 per month in health insurance, so your health insurance costs were 0.04% of your gross income. By 2008 you earned $67,000, and your premiums were $405 per month, and were 0.07% of your income. If that trend continues, nine years from now you'll be making $89,780, and your premiums will be $966 per month.

That's not all, though. You have to factor in co-pays and co-insurance. Co-pays rose an average of 25% from 2002 to 2005 ($15 to $19). People working for smaller companies -- small businesses! The lifeblood of Republicans! -- saw higher increases in co-pays on average, and they'd started out higher ($17 to $20 over that period of time.) (Source.)

Which means it's about 125% more expensive for you to go see the doctor, one time, today than it was 9 years ago -- and might be worse, depending on how often you have to go.

And did your income actually increase 34% over the last 9 years?

I don't drive a pick-up truck, and I don't do heavy work. But I am pretty good at crossword puzzles. Just thought I'd mention that.

You see a lot of people driving around in trucks and SUVs and the like these days -- a lot of people who don't need such a truck and who don't know how to properly use it.

You know how to tell the posers from the real men (and real women) who use trucks and heavy equipment in their manly (womanly) jobs, day-to-day? The truck racks and other accessories they have. People who just want the IMAGE of a pick-up truck don't have all the paraphernalia that the people who WORK for a living have.

If you are one of those people who actually works, and works hard, and uses your truck in your work, you'll want to check out RealTruck for all the van and truck accessories you need: racks for hauling everything you might need to get from that place to this place, side mount racks, toppers, heavy duty equipment, and that's not all: They also have bug shields, mud flaps, bedliners, fog lights and winches.

(I've always wanted a winch on my car. It goes back to my days playing "Big Jim" on the bunk beds.)

RealTruck will outfit your truck or van to cover the work you do. And to show those posers who's REALLY using a pick-up for work, instead of driving in it to the day spa.

1001 Ways To Tune Up The World, Number Fifty-Nine

59. Make refrigerators wider and shallower.

This was one I mentioned most recently to Sweetie, yesterday, when I had to remove fifty-three things (roughly) from our refrigerator to get out the apple sauce, which I'd put on the top shelf where it could be seen (so it wouldn't be forgotten and go bad) but where it had then been shoved back and back and back, behind newer, more seen-ier things also put on the top shelf.

Refrigerators are narrow and deep, and that's all wrong. It means that things get hidden in them, put behind the milk or just to the side of the bologna, and eventually goes bad.

On average, Americans throw out 470 pounds of food per year... and how much of that is because the yogurt sat behind the ketchup until it went bad?

Making refrigerators shallower -- so that nothing sits behind anything else -- and wider -- so that food can still be stored safely without going bad -- would help avoid that kind of waste. And I would never have to remove the eggs, the english muffins, the Lunchables, a yogurt container, leftover bread sticks, some salami, and a slice of apple pie before getting to the apple sauce.

Shown: The Tree Fridge by Yanko Design.

Prior entries:

58. Let everyone use "forever pricing" on everything.

57. Start all buildings on the first floor.

56. Process EVERYTHING.

55. Make children's toys solar- or kinetic-powered.

54. Abandon the north.

53. Give in and have computers start remembering things for us.

52. Make cups and glasses wider on the bottom. (All cups and glasses.)

51. Sometimes easier is harder (and dumber.)

50. Don't lather, rinse, repeat (I'm going somewhere with this...)

49. Ban cigarettes.

48. Use metered lanes to close a lane when doing traffic repairs, thereby avoiding long backups when jerks opt to ignore the lane closing signs.

47. Switch to a parliamentary form of government with proportional representation. (If you already do that, then stick with it.)

46. Quit Cell Phone Charger Thinking.

45. Create an Internet Superhighway, giving high-speed Internet access to everyone, everywhere.

44. Stop teaching any math past algebra and geometry to almost everybody, and instead just provide a general theory of math to high schoolers.

43. Launch people to Mars. Or even further.

42. Think nice things, and then say them.

41. Get the cheapest toothpaste possible, then use the money you save to do some good in the world.

40. Allow gay marriage.

39. Stop describing things as "hell" or "hard work" when they're not at all.

38. Accept the idea that eventually we're going to have to pay for stuff on the Internet.

37. Spell your kids' names the right way.

36. Look up more often.

35. Put people before pets.

34. Share the profits with employees, directly and frequently.

33. Dress up, at least a little, in public.

32. Apply the "Line Pass" philosophy to everything (including some government services).

30/31. Impose a luxury tax that increases exponentially the more people spend/Never watch another Brad Pitt or Angelina Jolie movie again.

29. What's so great about mom-and-pop stores and farms?

28. No more long answering machine or voice mail greetings.

27. Stop federal support of student loans.

26. Require everything we build, from here on out, to get at least some of its power from the sun or the wind.

25. Do an "Oklahoma Land Rush" in the cities.

24. Personalized Candy Bar Making Machines.

23. Learn new languages just for fun.

22. Opposite yourself.

21. Just like dandelions.

20. Why not have Radio-DVRs?

19. Start treating health care like what it is: a universal, inherent right of all people.

18. Baseball should have a shorter season and shorter games.

17. Open the borders. Everywhere.

16. Just start DVDs without all the preliminaries, please.

15. Just allow colleges to pay athletes, already.

14. Don't get married before you're 30.

13. Ban driving any kind of automobile, motorcycle or other personal vehicle within 1-2 miles of downtown in any city with a population of more than 100,000.

12. Abolish gym class; instead, teach kids to play musical instruments.

11. Change copyright laws to allow anyone to use anyone else's creative work provided that the copier pay 60% of the profit to the originator and that the copier not cast the original work in a negative light.

10. Have more sidewalk cafes and outdoor seating.

9. When you have to give someone a gift, ask them what they want, and then get that thing for them.

8. Never interrupt or finish someone's jokes.

7. Periodically, give up something you like for at least a month.

6. Switch to "E-money."

5. Have each person assigned one phone number, and then add an extension for the various phones and faxes that person might be reached at.

4. Abolish Mondays and Tuesdays.

3. Don't listen to interviews with athletes or comedians.

2. Have "personal cashiers" at the grocery store.

1. Don't earn more than $200,000 per year.




Claudius wanted to be the first man to reach the stars... but it was murder to get there. Read Eclipse, the haunting sci-fi book from Briane Pagel. Available at Lulu.com and on your Kindle.