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I love to talk politics. Conversations can be nothing but members of the choir encouraging each other, end in deadlocks, stalemate, or just hang there.
If you're a child of the Holocaust and your grandparents were brought over through Jewish charities or sponsors and then, as soon as they settled and worked their bones off to achieve prosperity, became philanthropic themselves, then it's a reciprocal process: I pull up your bootstraps and then, when I'm down, you pull up mine.
In the United States, if you collect unemployment, it's money that's withdrawn from paycheck deductions, one sort of insurance policy. When the government decides to kick in after your allotted time is up, it's because they prefer you at home job hunting rather than out on the streets, like so many during this recession, victimized by foreclosures at the subprime level or other forms of ARM (adjustable-rate mortgages?) or termination of a job and its benefits, with vaporization of retirement benefits. Then there is illness requiring medication and doctor visits that further burden the people in the above categories.
Given that fully one-sixth of the U.S. population (45 million) lack health-care coverage, the population involved probably exceeds that of those unemployed, at 10 percent of the working population, or 14.8 million as of January 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Unionofunemployed.com gives a far larger figure, 31 million, far closer to 10 percent of the population. I'm sure that number does not include those who have given up on job hunting. One web page opines that the critical 0.3 percent consists of those who have given up on job hunting The two categories, those without health-care insurance and those who are unemployed, frequently overlap. Many of those unemployed also lack health-care coverage.
Arguably, all this justified the present administration's futile prioritization of health-care reform over unemployment, in my opinion. Without health, people can do little else. With health, they can work, sometimes overtime.
I still believe in health-care reform. I still hope that Congress will give life to it in some form or another. Given the political climate, single-payer or public option just won't pass in Congress. But we can improve the present system. Republicans agree, for instance, that no one should be turned away from insurance coverage because of pre-existing conditions. Those without pre-existing conditions who are simply indifferent because they are young and healthy will ultimately cost society more if, God forbid, they are slapped with something sudden and lethal or seriously chronic.
On the subject of health-care reform, the top Republican priority is tort reform. Doctors tell me their malpractice insurance premiums can be as high as $80-some thousand a year. I think at such moments that they are very fortunate to be able to afford to pay them and stay in practice, especially now, when their incomes have descended so considerably. This I conclude from reading my insurance statements each time I visit a medical practitioner. I pay a bit, they are paid a bit, and then I am billed again for more by the insurance company, and that's not counting the deductible I must pay first, at which time the doctors can charge me through the nose.
I won't go into detail, but even with health insurance I pay a lot out of pocket, even when I have fulfilled my two deductibles. Then there is a ceiling on my prescription allowance, so that my pharmacy in Canada knows me well.
I still consider myself fortunate compared to a large percentage of the population here.
I have published many blogs on this subject at Wordsunltd.com and shared two with the larger public at Opednews.com. One article was written in November, "We're Not There Yet, But Health-Care Legislation Takes Giant Step Forward," on November 11, which received a plethora (31) of rotten vegetables and one star for "interesting" (I didn't put it there myself), and a second, published on December 9, "Health Care or Wealth Care: Another Deadline Looms," that was totally ignored: not one comment or rating.
One reader of one of my articles, I believe the first one, which is replete with Internet links to back up and expand on my assertions, responded with four-letter invectives and abuse of the very idea--her husband works hard for a living, and why should that money go to lazy people, unemployed and sitting in front of their TVs, collecting unemployment compensation and receiving free health care on her dollar?
Well, we're still corresponding via Oped's email option. I expressed my admiration for someone so opposed to progressivism visiting the site and reading my article--understanding of the opposition is important before you hurl invectives at it. Point-counterpoint.
Unfortunately there is a great deal of emotion involved in our communication, though she has obligingly eliminated the swear words from her communication after I advised her that they undermine the rest of her communication.
Our bottom lines are diametrically opposed, I informed her, attempting the bootstrap reciprocity mentioned above. I even mentioned, assuming that she is a church-going Christian, that Jesus gave freely to the poor, feeding and curing them without hesitation. I did not claim him as a liberal for that reason. We can of course donate to private charities, but I just don't think they have the means to care for 45 million adults without health care or employment (in most cases). Overhead consumes much of their funds, as does, unfortunately, some amount of corruption, even in the case of religious organizations.
She emailed me details on Medicare and Medicaid, telling me that I am totally uninformed. I thanked her but told her I was basing my points on that very information.
Since then she has accused me, and all "liberals" of being ignorant of reality and that we need to do lots more research to back up our assertions. I did not mention all the dissent among our ranks.
I said that paying taxes was like paying rent for the privilege of inhabiting the most wonderful country in the world, one that took in my refugee forebears and permitted them to prosper without consideration of their ethnic roots, though Skull and Bones might not have admitted the second generation enrolled at Yale on scholarship or parental support. That doesn't really matter. There are snobs all over the world.
So this is where we are now. Her husband works like a dog while she presumably stays home and keeps house. I told her how fortunate she was compared to a large percentage of the population and that I work full-time and pay high taxes but begrudge only that large proportion spent on our military endeavors.
Obama is working like a dog, too--he goes back to the oval office after dining with his family. I can relate to that, though I wolf down Lean Cuisine meals, not having the time to linger very long at the dinner table. I work day and night also.
I don't mind paying taxes because the president is doing all he can to clean up after Bush and all the money his administration has also targeted toward economic relief. Well, those on Wall Street are back in circ, pulling in record bonuses and, for the rest of us, even though thousands of jobs were lost last month, the unemployment rate descended by 0.3 percent. Foreclosures continue. In some places weasels are buying up these properties and auctioning them off with huge profits. Others can now afford such homes where they couldn't before.
But it's a gradual, trickle-down process.
My conservative correspondent might challenge the data or perhaps not even be able to relate to it, if she believes that I need to read the facts on Medicare and Medicaid. She told me to read up on things, but I sort of wondered whether she was the one who needed more information about the plight of the lower two classes at this point in time.
I ended my latest missive with the point that we both are fortunate compared to a large percentage of the population, and God bless America. I groped for common ground.
From that common ground we may slowly climb to more mutual understanding. I appreciate the challenge. Liberals are patriotic American citizens, too. We mean well when we assert that the welfare of others is our concern in addition to our own well being.
In case this correspondent is some progressive giving me a hard time, so be it. They're sure convincing and well understand the opposition, which is praiseworthy, but there is no need to prove this to me, especially since the correspondence is one on one. Said progressive should find better things to do with his or her time.
QED.
