Have you looked at your health care bills?

I have. What a joke. With or without Obamacare, this has got to change because if you do not have insurance and you actually pay your bills you are screwed.

To wit.

I visited a medical person recently (type does not matter) and for one visit they billed the insurance company for four items. One of them, inexplicably, was for zero. But there were two identical items - same code - and one bizarre one.  Sort of like when you do one action that breaks the law and get charged with four crimes (not that I would know).

The bizarre charge was for $120. The insurance company allowed none of it.

As for the two identical charges, the insurance company denied the second as a duplicate and paid $50 on a $65 charge.

With insurance, the cost was $50. Without insurance, it would have been $250.  Wow!

Health care professionals throw everything but the kitchen sink on the bill and the insurance company gets to play the good guy bean counter with a giant "denied" rubber stamper.

So, I am forced to pay tens of thousands per year on family insurance - not only to protect against the financial calamity of a serious illness or accident but also to hire a bulldog to keep the costs I pay until my deductible is met to a minimum.

Do I blame the docs? Nope. The paperwork they must carry is like Atlas' burden. Blame the system that has conditioned everyone that insurance is that to pay your bills instead of protecting against disaster.