One year older, Happy Birthday: HRC 90/100
26 October, 2016 | Index
Dear Hillary Clinton,
Gerard Mclean here, from Englewood, Ohio, about ten miles north of Dayton, This is the ninetieth letter of one hundred I am writing you on health care; one for each day between your nomination and your election. The previous letters can be found in your USPS mailbox or online at 100HRC.com.
Happy Birthday, Hillary! I wish you many, many more.
Usually, a birthday is a happy occasion. It is life’s reward for living one more year. But in America, it is also a punishment. On your birthday, you are a year older and a year more expensive. In my case, each year is about 13% of any increase in my health care insurance from Anthem BC/BS of Ohio.
I understand the actuaries behind the increase. Older people are riskier; it means each year is more wear and tear on the body, leading to more certain medical treatments. Higher premiums make sense on a spreadsheet when we are supposed to be earning more. But these tables were created decades ago when there were jobs that gave raises to experience. Now, corporations just get rid of us after 45 or so.
Twenty years is a long time between permanent unemployability and Medicare.
Please enjoy your birthday today. I hope there will be cake. Tomorrow, we can resume working on expanding the ACA to include SinglePayer, MedicareForAll, UniversalCare like you promised in your nomination acceptance speech.
Regards,
Gerard McLean
cc: Sen. Sherrod Brown
90/14
