I was in the grocery store not long ago, standing in the cereal aisle, and I watched a young mother try to choose a box for her children. She read the sides. She compared the prices. She put one back and picked up another. By the time she left, she looked tired, and I do not think she was any happier with the box she chose than she would have been with the first one.
That is what too many choices do to people. Everybody agrees on this, I think. We have more options than any people in history and less peace of mind. A man with one good pair of boots is happier than a man with a closet full of them, because he never has to stand there in the morning deciding.
I want to carry that thought a little further than most people do. My cousin lives in a county where there is one company that sells health plans. One. When his renewal comes in the mail, he does not shop around or call anybody or read anything. He opens the envelope, he looks at the number, and he pays it. Then he goes on with his day.
Some people would call that a lack of competition. I call it a lack of stress. My cousin is not spending his evenings comparing plans the way that young mother compared cereal. He knows exactly where he stands, and he knows exactly who to call. There is no confusion and no wondering whether he could have done better. He could not have done better. There was nothing else to do.
I have noticed that the people who want more choices in everything are rarely satisfied once they have them. They want a second option, and then a third, and then they want somebody to explain all the options to them, and then they want the government to step in and make the options fairer. It never ends. The man with one choice is spared all of that.
There is also loyalty to think about. When there is only one company, you get to know it. You learn its ways. You stop expecting it to bend for you, and that is a kind of maturity. A marriage does not work because you keep checking what else is out there. It works because you stopped looking.
My cousin’s number has gone up every year he has had it. He told me so at Christmas, without much feeling either way. I asked him what he planned to do about it, and he said there was nothing to do. I thought that was the most peaceful thing I had heard all year.
I am voting for the Republican for Senate this fall partly on my cousin’s account. I hear the other side wants a public option in counties like his, and I would hate to see him made to choose.
He doesn’t shop for insurance anymore. He just pays what the letter says. I have come to envy him.
D. M.