How are you feeling at this point?

App design is starting to take more and more advantage of the format. There is one called 'Moodboard' that is a well designed form of collage/journal. Lets you easily grab web pages, photos, etc, and add text. Then you can export the result to facebook or email. I think these types of things are going to change communication. Sure, it is nothing you could not to on a laptop in MS Word if you had an hour and wanted it to feel like  work instead of a form of self expression. but I captured my morning in 10 minutes and thoroughly enjoyed myself.

On the other hand, my policy renews July 1 and I got the premium increase today. Without being sick or having medical bills, it's jumping $320 a month, after jumping $250 a month last year. This year it's due to an age bracket change, but still, $1,100 a month for group (not individual) health insurance with a high deductible for one healthy person is ridiculous. I think HCR is a factor in the premium renewal. Their claim:

In June, 2007, Gov. Bill Ritter signed Colorado Health Bill 1355 into law. Simply stated, this bill prevents health care insurers from considering risks such as claims history and health status among employees in determining your premium rates. As a result...the law shifts a portion of the costs of insuring the relatively unhealthy groups onto the relatively healthy groups.

The new law eliminated the modest adjustments to small business health insurance premiums based on a person's health status or claim's experience. Our data shows that these adjustments helped stabilize the small group health insurance market to the benefit of our small employer members by keeping their rates seven to eight percent below the standard rate.

[In the past] if your group's claim experience was low, or your health history favorable, you were charged less than the standard rate. By using rate adjustment factors (RAF) based on health and claims, our underwriting system allowed us to provide lower rates for the healther groups while charging a greater premium for those groups with higher claims experience..

HB 1355 requires all Colorado small group health insurance companies stop using claims experience or health status in calculating a small group's premium. This means healthy groups will begin absorbing more of the costs of providing health insurance for groups who, but for this law, would have had to pay more than the standard rate.

In 2008, insurers couldn't use health status or experience to charge more, but it could still offer discounts to healthy people. No more.

In 2009, the law required health insurers to stop considering claims experience or health status in determining a group's premium. this means that healthy groups, which prior to 2009, could get a discount, "will likely experience an increase in their premium now that their health status can no longer be considered in determining their premium.

They sent a big packet with 19 other plans to choose from. An Standard HMO  would $2,100 a month for a single person in my age bracket.

I have a few weeks to decide my options. I think every person in this country deserves the best health care possible. For those who are unhealthy, they should be allowed to get the insurance. But it shouldn't be the healthy paying for the unhealthy. It should be the Governmnet paying the excess tab for the greater premiums for the unhealthy. Defund the War on Drugs in Mexico, get out of Afhanistan, Iraq and Africa v and stop sending so many billions in aid  to every nation in the world. In other words, that money could  be better spent here, on health care for all of us.

The HCR health plan, in forcing healthy people to pay for the unhealthy, rather than have the Government hands over relief money to make up the differnce, is just  a*s backwards.