Middle age: HRC 50/100

16 September, 2016 | Index

Dear Hillary Clinton,

Gerard Mclean here, from Englewood, Ohio, just north of Dayton. There were 100 days from your nomination to election, so I’m writing you 100 letters. This is the fiftieth letter. The others can be found in your USPS mailbox or online at 100HRC.com

We’re at letter fifty of one hundred. Some might say we have reached middle age, but you and I know we are just starting to get good, finding our stride, stretching our skills into producing instead of merely learning, becoming comfortable in what we’re here to do.

But you know who thinks when we hit fifty we are too old to keep alive, too old to be productive, too old to care about? Health insurance companies and pretty much every employer in America, that’s who.

The Great Recession gave many corporations cover to shed their older workers with impunity. Many of us have given up finding a job with health insurance benefits. Most of the justification Anthem BC/BS of Ohio has given for the increase of 29% on my policy is AGE. I am a year older than last year and therefore a 13% greater risk of using health care. At minimum — AT MINIMUM — I was looking at a 13% increase.

We need UniversalCare, SinglePayer, MedicareForAll. We should all be lucky enough to grow older, because the only other alternative is dead. With our current health care system, I sometimes wonder who the lucky ones really are in America.

Regards,

Gerard McLean
cc: Sen. Sherrod Brown

PS: Do you have any pull with the AARP? I appreciate all the attention they’ve been giving me since I turned 50, but really the only product I need from them is group health care. Can you see what you can do with them? Thanks.