Procrastination is bought and paid for with a very large price tag.

Everybody likes to live in the here and now and not worry about tomorrow. The problem with this is that eventually tomorrow becomes the here and now and you are going to reap the benefits of your investment decisions.

Whether you are accumulating a nest egg for early retirement, or want to protect that nest egg and your independence with insurance, time is the most important asset you have at your disposal. A cruel irony: every year you delay your insurance decision increases the cost.

Being under-insured means you risk facing bills with lots of zeros. It means you are putting your retirement savings, your 401(k), your bank passbook account, your current wages, future investment potential, your children’s college fund and even your home at risk of being confiscated to pay for your debts.

By waiting a few more years you are going to pay a lot more for it. Wait too long and you won’t qualify. The largest cost of delaying your insurance protection is not the premium, it is not having the coverage when you need it.

Don’t look at the insurance coverage premium as just one more monthly bill. Consider it an investment in your future financial well being. By waiting, high blood pressure, accidents or a chronic illness can severely decrease the return, and protection, in your later years when you really need it.

Abbott Laboratories (ABT) is a drug and device medical company currently trading at 16 times its expected 2007 earnings of $2.82 per share. That is significantly below the 5-year average of 20.

The reason it is trading so low is multi-faceted but can in large part be blamed on the disappointing failures last year of prostate-cancer treatment drug Xinlay, and the heart-failure medication Simdax. Wall Street is also weary of medical stocks as the health care companies have lost 5% of their value in the past 5 years.

The reason many value investors are looking at Abbott Laboratories as a good buy right now is because of it’s recent acquisition of Guidant’s vascular-devise business. Purchased in April for $4.1 billion, the vascular division is producing $1.4 billion of this years estimated $22 billion in revenue and is expected double by 2009. It is also likely to boost Abbot’s earnings growth rate into the double digits from a current single digit performance.

Humira, the rheumatoid arthritis drug, is producing 12% of the profits and is going to grow bigger in the next several years. It’s competitive advantage is impressive; less dosing than Amgen’s Enbrel, and being injectable is more convenient than Johnson & Johnson’s Remicade.

With the prior disappointments already factored into the stock price, this $44 stock is poised to move upward. In the coming year it’s stock price could move upward to trade in the $54 range.