Let me be honest here. I have some sympathy with the tea partiers. In the admittedly simplistic formulation, I have fulfilled my obligation with the payment of taxes, but I have secured none of the rights. In the first year after my "forced" retirement, it seems I made too much money in the previous year and had too many assets in my retirement account to secure any benefits. Between my wife and I, we have over twenty years of service in the military, but we didn't "qualify" for VA benefits and no subsidy under the provisions of Obama Care, in part because of the income restriction, in part because we were "unemployed."
Consequently, we paid full freight for our insurance, which amounted to a bit over $800 a month, nearly twice what we are paying on our mortgage. This insurance carried with it a $5000 deductible, and co-pays of close to 50% after the deductible had been met. Under normal circumstances, we would never meet the $5000 deductible. Under dire circumstances -- say we had a $100K hospitalization and that is not inconceivable with my wife's health issues -- we would still be obligated for nearly $50K. To be frank, we made the $800 payment a couple of times, but we quit. Here's the thing. Over the course of the year, that amounted to $9,600, more than we could afford. We rolled the dice, and bet that we wouldn't have a dire need over the course of the year, and that our medical expenses wouldn't be more than $14,600 or the total out-of-pocket expenses of premiums and co-pays. Fortunately our bet paid off and we moved through the year in good health.
We now qualify for the subsidies, and we are making payments similar to my employee contribution when I was employed, but here's the other thing. We still have the humongous deductible and co-pays. If something were to happen, if we had that $100K hospitalization, the hospital would get $50K, but I'm not sure how we would pay the remaining $50K without surrendering ALL our assets. I haven't explored the bankruptcy laws of late, but I'm pretty sure that we would need to exhaust all our available means before we could write off any remaining debt. In short, the dire circumstances would be dire regardless. The hospital is protected, perhaps not to the extent that they would like to be protected, but we are only marginally protected and the hospital would continue to have dunning rights. On top of the health issues, we would have a plethora of financial issues to confront.
And here's one more thing. Health care is expensive. We all know this of course, but it's like toilet paper. When you need it, you need it, and you'll pay for it. The Post the other day ran an insightful little story about why the poor pay more for toilet paper. The bottom line is this: they don't have access to or the means to take advantage of cost saving strategies (no access to Costco and no funds to buy in bulk regardless). Consequently, they pay full retail, often the full retail of a convenience store. As the article concluded, it's expensive to be poor, and indeed it is. We could, for example, get a more expensive plan, which would protect us better against the shock of a major hospitalization, but the bottom line is this: we can't afford it and the benefits aren't THAT much better. Moreover, with the deductible, we are postponing or avoiding routine, mostly preventative medical care. Think of it this way. Although the cost of a routine visit would go toward our deductible, and preventative care might well mitigate a more catastrophic event later, it still represents an out of pocket expense, money thrown into a black hole. Most American families have to look at a $200 expense and weigh this against that. I won't say they always make the most prudent decisions, but there are always more pressing day-to-day needs and wants.
So, my tax dollars are at work, but I do feel some resentment that they are most definitely not working very hard for me. The resentment is fueled in part by an invidious comparison. I do, that is, see others for whom they seem to be hard at work. Take, for example, my buddy Mike. I won't get the story exactly right. It came in dribs and drabs when he came into our shop, but the general outline goes something like this: He is an immigrant, born in Ireland, and brought to the US to stay with relatives. He served two years in the military, and at a relatively young age, he had a motorcycle accident which left him with "back problems." Although he probably can't do construction work (his trade before the accident) he is not so disabled that he couldn't seek one form of work or another. Let me put it this way, he is no more disabled than my wife, who suffers from a degenerative arthritis of the spine. She has had three back surgeries, but nevertheless manages to be employed as a hospice worker. Mike, however, remains unemployed. He has access to the VA system, which keeps him supplied with hydrocodone for "pain management." He also receives disability benefits through the social security administration. Perhaps it is one of those ironies that those states that draw most heavily on the federal larders are also the most "republican." There are plenty of Mike's around Mountain Home. One doesn't need to look long or hard for those milking the system, which probably fuels resentments across a broad spectrum of the working and middle class families in the area.
I regret my resentment, but there it is nevertheless. This by way of saying, I don't have many illusions about the poor of this country. I could, for example, have talked about my other buddy Brad. He had to count out pennies to buy a single fly in the shop, but he seems to have sufficient resources to maintain a cigarette habit. The one time I did go fishing with him, he also seemed to have sufficient resources to buy weed. He had illusions as a youth of being a rodeo and country music star, but he is now a fifty year old man who hasn't quite outgrown the illusions. He lives with and on the benefits of his elderly mother. I could, for example, have talked about ... the list goes on. When we had our store, I watched a daily stream of "them" going into the thrift store across the way. I try very hard avoid judgement, but when they meandered into our store, obese, tattooed, reeking of cigarette smoke, with poor hygiene and very often overweening supercilious "attitude," it was difficult NOT to judge. One such, who came into the shop looking for worms, told me that "fly fishing was for people who liked 'play with themselves,'" and went around poking fun at everything in the store, and couldn't leave without a gratuitous comment about that "nigger Obama." This by way of saying, again, I don't have many illusions about the poor of this country. Although it might have been easier to romanticize the noble poor of the depression, I can't romanticize them today because there is little to romanticize.
The American social state is broken. Those it "serves," like the Mike's of this world, can't really respect it, in part because they get their benefits through what amounts to a scam. Those who administer the systems can't respect the recipients of benefits, in part because they know they are being scammed and can't do much about it. Those who are outside it, watching, can't help but feel some resentment that their tax dollars are going into a morass. The idea, for example, that Muslim foreigners would come into the country, as refugees, and no doubt get benefits, sends many over the top. Regardless whether or not it is true, the idea ... The political parties appeal to an amalgam of isolated attitudes about mostly base emotional "issues," with little ability or desire to actually address fundamental problems within the government rationally with solutions. Although I tend to lean toward the progressive left, and feel the so-called conservative revolution that began with Reagan and Thatcher is responsible for much of our current malaise, I am not exempting my progressive brethren from the general malaise. Bernie might be the antithesis of Trump, but he is gaining the traction he has gained fueled by the same resentments.
No comments:
Post a Comment