Well, a few significant things happened today:
(1) my internship officially ended;
(2) we began to pack up some stuff for our move next door (we arrived in Malibu a year ago today, and in memory of all the fun we had lugging our stuff up to the third floor, we are moving everything we own to another apartment – our new apartment is exactly the same as this one, but I will say that it has a much better ocean view, so, there’s that);
(3) I think I have incited a riot.
One of my friends linked to a Washington Post article today that criticized Republican leaders for the use of anti-health care reform propaganda. After a summer of seeing how badly the poor have it and feeling peeved at the use of propaganda to thwart an effort to help people afford the crazy costs of health care, I thought I would post a link to the article on Facebook. Well, it appears people have opinions about such things. 🙂
So far it has been my conservative friends that have spoken up about the article. (Note: they don’t like it.) I’m hoping my liberal friends will chime in, too (I’m starting to get lonely!). But in the end, all fun conversations aside, I surely hope that the political game will get out of the way long enough so that something can be done about the crazy costs of health care.
For years, my family paid hundreds of dollars a month for health insurance with a $5,000 deductible that would pay 50% of our costs if we were somehow able to actually pay our deductible first. In other words, the best insurance coverage we could get sucked.
Thankfully, we were healthy during those years. Also thankfully, Jody later got a job with good, affordable coverage (at AT&T) or we would have been sunk when our collective health troubles began. First, Jody’s gall bladder had to come out. Second, Hillary’s appendix ruptured. Third, I had chest pains (that turned out to be esophagitis, gastritis, and a hiatal hernia). All in all, the medical bills in that year alone were somewhere around $75,000.
The Math:
* With our “old” coverage, we would have paid about $4,000/year in premiums and owed $40,000.
* With our “new” coverage, we paid about $1,000/year in premiums and owed $1,000.
The best a lot of people can do is our old coverage. Huge numbers of others can’t come close to affording the premiums on our old coverage.
So here’s what I don’t want you to believe:
(1) That health care reform will make health care like the DMV. That, my friends, is propaganda.
(2) That health care reform will cost you tons of money. C’mon, everyone, costing tons of money is why we “need” health care reform.
We live in a country with so much money that everyone can have affordable health care. We might not live in a country where everyone who has affordable health care cares enough about those who don’t to demand justice for all.
Minutes to Memories 