You pointed out the difference between trust and hope.

“my food and exercise and nutritional choices are not swayed one way or the other by my healthcare (would I make healthier choices if I knew I didn’t have health care? I doubt it - my main motivation for my choices is simply my wellbeing”

That is trust - that the answer is within not out there somewhere depending on what someone does. Hope is when the answer is out there dependent on something else (e.g., Congress passing universal health care”. As you said,

“I honestly don’t think we (canadians) see HealthCare as a Hope, causing us to not take responsibility for our own health.”

Thus, is this saying that by having a knowing the answer is within, you take on more responsibility for your health?

A question that you raised,

“if some people don’t have it in them (the knowledge, the inner spirit, whatever) to shift to the ‘trust’ rather than the ‘hope’ … does that mean they shouldn’t still have full access to medical treatment?”

This is something that was in the back of my mind. I did not write the article to debate whether or not we should have universal health care (just was what triggered some thoughts in my mind). Universal Health Care is a secondary issue (one that I let others debate and trust we come up with a better solution than we have right now).

I guess the underlying message I was writting about is why do some Americans lay their hopes on just universal health care instead of going to solve the root of the problem, personal responsibility? Thus, most of the articles I have written center around personal responsibility, so that person who does not know how to switch from “hope” to “trust” can learn.

I honestly don’t think we (canadians) see HealthCare as a Hope, causing us to not take responsibility for our own health. Almost on the contrary, it’s part of the Trust - I know the bare basics are met, which gives me motivation to build on that foundation.

….and…. even if some people don’t have it in them (the knowledge, the inner spirit, whatever) to shift to the ‘trust’ rather than the ‘hope’ … does that mean they shouldn’t still have full access to medical treatment?

Yet, the key message in all this. Is if we are hoping for a solution, we will be sadly mistaken with the results because the solution in having a knowing things will work out which frees us up to do our part of the solution to maximize the results. If we continue to blame the health care industry for all our wows (or banks/credit cards companies for our financial pickle), we will overlook how we contribute to it (because if we have is hope - nothing we can do will help). When we trust (and see things like higher gas prices as a bump in the road), we do our part of the solution and things tend to have a way of working out in the end.

After I posted, I saw something at CNN/Money as forcasters are projecting lower oil prices in the next 3 to 8 years. So, we just need to trust and do what we can now to ride out the price blip until things calm back down versus giving up and letting things slip because we have given up on the American Dream.

Anyway, the comparison between your health and your finances is still good when you take universal healthcare as the best thing that’s ever happened, or think that it would spell the end of the world. And that’s because the cost of poor health is measured in things other than money.

And, this was just a quote in a report, it did not go into details on the other features. From the facts, we do not even know if the male had a medical condition (e.g., heart condition) which would allow to receive a better policy because it is more unlikely for him to reach age 85 (thus could get a better benefit if he did). I used it only to get people to say “wow” that much (as it was used in the article as well), only to show them it may not be as good as deal as it first sounds like by raising questions that people looking into these policies should look at. My hunch is that there is little or no death benefits because these benefit are riders that would lower the amount received at 85 which is not usually used in marketing (show the biggest benefit - lowest price and then sell add-on riders).