Health Insurance: Head you win, tail I lose

 

In the past, health insurance is a must-have to hedge against own health’s risks. So almost everyone is forced to buy into some plans.

But now I realize these health insurance plans’ terms keep changing with premiums keep rising rapidly to factor in inflations and ‘hidden’ costs. Old plans become useless over time! Those insured are akin to cash cows to the insurance companies. They continue to ‘milk’ the cows who have to find grasses as food so as to eat enough to produce milk to be ‘milked’ by these profit-making companies. But what choice do we have? Sigh ☹

kiki-ku-kiki (自己顾自己)

 

In the past, whether you’re healthy or not, medical fees and insurance premiums continued to rise with one’s age.

Now, it’s even worse! Medical costs and insurance premiums keep rising rapidly without limits or control. A new topic these days on preventive-care but does it really work?  There is no incentive (like no-claim discount in car insurance) to keep fit and remain healthy except for one’s strong will or belief in Mahatma Gandhi’s motto: “good health is true wealth”.

Fast vs Slow

 

In the past, life was slower but safer. People carried pagers (only those old enough would know what is a pager) and had to find a phone to call back when paged. It was hard to get scammed because there is a time delay as people could not find a public phone easily to call back. 😊

Now with mobile phones on everyone’s hands and with fingers always on the screen, it’s so easy to touch it and activate the scam especially for those ‘trigger-happy-fingers’. Technology is an enabler for scammers and hackers in the fast world!  If you want to beat them, you have to play it slow with your brains. 

Technology: Enabler or Inhibitor?

 

In the past, life was simpler. Any help or request is just a phone call away. Now, life is quite challenging & tough! Almost everything today needs to use an app or talk to bots:

“Press “1” for English, press “2” for Chinese. For……press “1”, for……press “2”,……otherwise, please hold, we will attend to you shortly…(wait, wait, waiting)….” Damn! Technology is supposed to be an enabler, not an inhibitor to users. What the ****. ☹

Be Smarter

 

In the past, my phone wasn’t smart. It could only make calls and sms. It was so peaceful. I only needed to charge it once every few days.   

Now, my phone is very smart with a data plan. So it started receiving useless contents, fake news and scam calls. Now, I have to charge my phone almost every day! My energy consumption has increased, my carbon footprint becomes deeper and my vision gets poorer. I have to de-activate my data when it’s not in use because I cannot stop scams, stubborn and bored people from “abusing” their devices. ☹  

Don't give freely

In the past, scammers misuse your personal information from lucky draw papers. Now, scammers steal your personal data via portals and apps sign-ups. Any personal data in digital form are targets of cyber crimes. Data’s owners don’t really spend resources to protect or secure your data. That’s explains why there are so many data breaches these days.