Personal Health Insurance – It’s All About You

This article isn’t about personal health insurance, at least not the traditional type of insurance that most of us think about when we hear the phrase. I’m really talking about something more akin to our own personal self-assurance with respect to our health, and taking action to ensure a good state of personal health. The inspiration for this story comes from my own experience and personal knowledge of others.

Back in the late 1980′s I contracted a virus that chewed away at my nerve endings and caused various parts of me to work in an abnormal manner or stop working altogether. Don’t worry, all of the vital parts continued to work just fine as I continued on my consulting assignment in another state. For a hard charging guy like me, I wasn’t going to let a little “pinched nerve” take me off course with respect to the assignment I was completing for my client.

When my three month assignment was finished, I visited several doctors back home who helped me arrive at the conclusion that the illness I had encountered was life threatening and it wasn’t at all uncommon to people to die from it. The virus was known to chew up nerves that operate the diaphragm and then people stop breathing. That’s lights out in anyone’s book unless you have an iron lung handy.

Fortunately for me, I was able to press on with my work and ride out this virus that was otherwise bent on killing me. I still have a little bit of disability in some of my extremities, but nothing that would be easily noticed or otherwise gets in the way of doing what I want to do.

The idea of this very personal health insurance struck home when my neurologist said, “People die from this.” From that day on I promised myself that if I was ever in doubt about my health, I would go off to the doctor or emergency room and get checked out. That was my commitment then, and it remains my commitment to this day.

That brings me to two additional examples of others who aren’t really all that interested in providing for their own personal health because they’ve never made such a commitment to “take care.”

• The first example is a woman I know who is in her 40′s. She’s been having vision problems for over a year but not until recently did she go get her eyes examined. Now her doctor tells her that her untreated condition has led to permanent damage. Her vision will remain considerably impaired. How sad. The last thing anyone could want is to lose the ability to see all the beautiful things in the world. Nevertheless, she knowingly put her vision at risk, and she lost.
• The other case is an acquaintance of mine who has severe diabetes. We were visiting at my place one day and I pointed out a book that I had sitting on my end table. I explained how most cases of diabetes were reversible with diet and exercise, as discussed in the book (half of which is a cookbook for diabetics). Indeed, I explained how I had done just that – kicked diabetes through diet and exercise. He picked up the book, leafed through it for a few seconds and put it down again without saying a word.

It seems to me that personal health insurance starts with us. It’s really something that we can’t buy. I don’t think you need to be a “hair on fire” self reliant type to understand that basic concept. Nor does it take a tremendous effort to implement such an approach. Since my life-threatening experience of more than 20 years ago, I’ve driven myself to the doctor, emergency room and urgent care clinic a total of four times. It’s really quite simple to do if you have a commitment to help keep yourself healthy.

In the absence of good health, your quality of life takes a nosedive, and you’re impaired with respect to helping yourself, your family and others.  As Benjamin Franklin reminds us, ” Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.”

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Clair Schwan is one of the fools who learned in that “dear school” of experience, and he’s used that learning experience to stay more vigilant with respect to his own health care.