Health care credits for being healthy? What a concept!

I’m very excited about this: Healthy habits may cut price of insurance.

My current health insurance carrier, Fallon, blows a lot of hot air about their “discounts” for physical fitness expenditures, like gym memberships. But it’s a complete fraud. It has nothing to do with helping Fallon’s customers stay healthy. It’s all about big corporate interests supporting each other, with sly winks and backslaps, by sending each other business. Fallon doesn’t care if you’re healthy. They don’t care if you use your pricey gym memberships and Pilates tuition. In fact, Fallon pretty much hopes that they’ll never hear from you, ever. In this they are no different from every other private insurer. “Medical care” is an oxymoron. Just ask my mom, or annef, both of whom were egregiously misdiagnosed. Oh, that’s right, you can’t ask them–they’re dead.

For decades, I’ve been aggressively proactive in maintaining my own health. At 53, I’m physically fit, flexible, my vitals are pristine, I exercise daily and eat a very healthy diet. The only health problem that’s nagged me for my entire life (since toddler-hood) is being too fat. Now I’ve beaten that. I’ve been at war with my body, or at least its fat cells, since I was 13 and I have now won the war. But a nice glow of self esteem is the only reward I’ll get for it from Fallon. I pay 100% of my health insurance out of pocket, my premiums went up 25% this year, and I have to wait months to get a routine appointment. Let’s not even talk about dental.

If health care reform includes some material recognition of how much money my personal disciplines are saving the medical industry, I’ll feel truly vindicated. We shall see…