Never let it be said that I couldn’t admit my errors. I’ve heard it takes a big man to admit he’s wrong. I guess that makes me a big man – however, because of my recent change to a healthtier diet, I am getting smaller.

For I while now I have been blaming the insurance companies for causing the problem. At the same time my gut was telling me that they couldn’t be that evil.

I had an epiphany while I was waiting at a restaurant to meet with a broker to talk about sponsorship for some of my events. I had spoken to this gentleman over the phone and he appeared to be an upstanding human being. I couldn’t put a nasty face on this guy no matter how hard I tried.

It put me to thinking, and I realized in a flash of clarity that the insurance companies, just like the doctors and the employers, were all part of something so big that they had become swallowed up. I guess it’s kind of like blaming the lathe operator for getting his sleeve caught in the gears and losing his arm without looking at the machine’s part in the process.

“The System” is a machine. It eats money and unfortunately lives. In retrospect blaming the insurance companies for simply fulfilling their role was pretty callous and unthinking. True, they did have a hand in creating a third party payer system, but they are only partially responsible for turning the system into “The System.” We, as consumers of health care must accept partial responsibility. The doctors as well have to accept their part as do the employers and claims and case managers and attorneys.

Any entity or person or group of persons  that is now caught up in the system can’t be blamed for the system. They can only claim responsibility for their part. At that point we all have to look at ourselves and ask what we’ve done and see what we can do differently.

So my apologies insurance companies. I now know that and acknowledge that you have only been doing your job to the best of your abilities, and just like all you’ve been run over by a steam roller and now have to look at what was broken or bent in the incident and let’s all try to fix it – together.