Despite a lifetime of being inculcated with cynicism toward national holidays, it still behooves me to pause this Thanksgiving to give thanks for the good things around me, especially the people.

At the risk of sounding sarcastic, and, in truth, despite actually intending to be a tiny bit sarcastic for rhetorical effect, I must offer a deep and heartfelt thanksgiving to the young adults of the state of New York who have managed to stay healthy.

Why? Well, you may have heard that many sole proprietors were forced by Obamacare from their carefully crafted group health care plans, mostly through local chambers of commerce, onto the individual market, i.e., the New York Health Exchange, where socialized medicine lives in its dark recesses, like the angler fish.

With fear and trepidation I submitted myself to a broker who explained to me with deep and understanding eyes the nature of this state-controlled marketplace (which nomenclature seems a perversion on the level of the Abomination of Desolation), where I was initially mortified to find premiums for lesser products much higher than what I was accustomed to. Alas!

Nevertheless, we did some poking around, played with some levers and dials, and –oila!– my premiums have gone down dramatically. Decorum prevents me from stating dollar figures and percentages (let the white papers do that in the detail you need), but it gave me, as I stated above, pause to thank young healthy people.

You see, I never actually minded paying full retail for health care as a sole proprietor. I enjoyed strolling into the environs of a health care provider armed with a high-deductible health savings plan, which meant that I walked with the snap and panache of a man dressed to the nines carrying a blue pearl eight-ball knob walking stick in one hand, and a roll of legal tender for all debts public and private in the other. I got what I was paying for.

Now I have exchanged that comfort for a hat in hand, glancing over to Mr. and Mrs. Adam Gurri, asking them for permission to garner attention and medicine, who, along with many young and healthy New Yorkers, are contributing out of their pocket for my family’s health care.

However, because of this redistribution (which, for the record, I did not ask for), my pockets are much heavier so that I might walk into a Rolls Royce dealership with the same snap and panache as I used to approach my doctor.

Indeed, with all due decorum and gratitude: to the young, healthy working people of New York State, thank you. I don’t know how long this arrangement will work, but, for the moment, it is working, and I’m grateful today.