Why is buying health insurance like buying a BMW?

It sure sounds that way, with all the numbers and letters for insurance options, doesn’t it?

The thought was provoked by my passing the 90-day mark at my new job, as I wrote about in more depth in my op-ed column last week. (Time soooo flies when you’re not having so much fun.) Some selected thoughts:

First, if I’ve just been in a new locale, and not just a new job, for only 90 days, and haven’t been sick, how am I supposed to know enough about doctors to make a choice as a primary care physician?

And, don’t you almost need a translator to wade through the jargon? First, the combination of letters and numbers to describe different insurance packages make me feel like I'm buying a Mercedes or BMW. Either that, or with phrases like “high option” and “low option,” maybe I'm buying pork bellies futures at the Chicago Board of Trade.

And, there’s the question of whether insurance really does that much good, anyway.

I read a news analysis article of the state of health care in American and how much national health insurance would help. …

Anyway, the author of this analysis said that you ultimately get little better coverage quality if you’re privately insured, on Medicare or having to crash emergency rooms as unemployed. And, the more specialists in your area, the more likely that was to be true.

Theoretically, though, having health insurance is supposed to offer some sort of peace of mind. But, having some sort of national health care coverage, whether a British-Canadian single payer system, a German voucher system or some hybrid, would offer that same peace of mind to people between jobs, stay-at-home moms who have just been divorced and many others.

And, if we were all on the same page, we might have less paperwork, too.

Until we can do a better job of taking care of people’s health — and mental health — needs in today’s high-paced, high-stress world, can we truly claim to be such a shining light to other countries?