After working for 43 years, I suddenly found myself laid off without medical health insurance coverage and, since the company cancelled its health plan, no COBRA was available. Applying to all available "individual" health plans, I was shocked to discover the cheapest premium for just myself, catastrophic only, would be $935 a month. FYI, one day in ICU at UC Davis Medical Center is $100,000. If I were to be hospitalized without medical coverage, the state would take all the equity out of my home. For anyone who has been there, this is a frightening dilemma.

But there was a solution. If I had a business with a Plymouth address, I could apply for a group policy and my premium, for only catastrophic insurance, would be $397 a month. Opening my own business involved getting a business license, doing a fictitious name filing, opening a business checking account and having a Plymouth address. I called a friend who lives in the Shenandoah Valley and asked if I could use her address for a business address so that I could get insurance. Too late did I discover that I did not make myself clear as to what exactly getting a "business address" meant. After the fictitious name filing appeared in the Ledger Dispatch, my friend was besieged with concerned neighbors that she was opening some sort of backyard junk sale business and it would be damaging to the entire Shenandoah Valley. She was, needless to say, highly embarrassed, humiliated and understandably felt used. While that certainly was never my intent, I do take full responsibility for not ensuring that my communication was complete, and sincerely apologize to her and her neighbors. My business, as it is, sells things for other people on the Internet; the only effect it will have on Amador County is mail in my P.O. Box. So the real cost of health insurance? Outrageous premiums vs. friendship. Health insurance is not worth it. Perhaps our new president will come up with a realistic plan.