Healthcare... Being a citizen... And a plea to caring people.

In light of yesterday’s health care vote…I could rant about the economics of healthcare and how the market isn’t free, and a host of other nerdy stuff, but instead, I’ll just talk about something more basic. Citizenship.
Citizenship. What does that mean? What does that look like? It seems hard to find these days. I’m a little fired up so allow me some grace… I’m going to get pretty transparent, and I don’t know how to not get personal.
Michael (my husband) and I do well. Individually, we both make incomes that land us in the top 3% of U.S. earners for our age group. Put our incomes together, and we fare out even higher — independent of our age. Is this because we’re smarter or work harder and are therefore more deserving? NO. Not solely. It’s a combination of work ethic, making “good” choices, a lot of luck, the socio-economic status we were born into, the fact that we had zero student debt because our parents paid for a lot of stuff, and, more than anything, it’s because we chose corporate careers in industries that pay out nice, cushy incomes. Those same companies also give us heavily subsidized access to health care. We did not choose to serve our country in the armed forces, or be teachers, or work for non-profits. We did not take the risk it requires to start a business or make it as an artist or try some other nontraditional path.
But, a lot of people much smarter than us and who work harder than us did, and it doesn’t make us more deserving of anything. But I guarantee you, our health care is way better than the people listed above. In fact, the hourly fast food worker who comes from a broken home and has little to no role models and suffers health challenges and lives in a violence-ridden community may actually find it harder to do his work every day than for me to do mine. (I wrote this post at the hair salon at 3:30pm while getting a $200 cut and color). So why do I get access to life-saving treatments and routine checkups and he doesn’t?
The current healthcare debate is not about access. It’s not about fixing what’s broken with Obamacare (a lot! and there are smart people who have a lot of ideas on how to fix it). It’s not about providing relief to those who’ve been “hurt” by the rising cost in premiums. Premiums will likely soar if some version of these plans pass. It’s about greed. It’s about giving a tax break to people like Michael and myself…. people wayyyy richer than us.
If you’re on Medicaid, receiving chemotherapy, at risk of losing your healthcare, and visited my Instagram feed… you’d want to punch me in the face. And I wouldn’t blame you. Michael and I just frolicked around Italy for 10 days. But, sorry we need some more cash for gelato and pasta… so ciao chemotherapy for you. WTF? That’s horrible. That’s wrong.
Those of you who want to take the “well you work hard and have good jobs, and I’m tired of paying for lazy people who sit around on welfare and have 10 kids to get government assistance” position… you don’t know the first thing about health care and how it works in this country. You don’t know the first thing about the ACA. If you want to debate welfare and social security and disability benefits in this context, go for it. But not healthcare. It’s a different beast and a lot of hard working people are getting screwed because of how the system is set up.
To all of you who have employer-sponsored health care… you do realize that your company probably subsidizes 60–80% of your healthcare premiums and costs right? Remember Michael and I… us with the household income in the top 3%? If Michael’s employer didn’t cover most of our cost, and I got breast cancer or our sweet little son-to-be was born prematurely, we’d be royally fucked. Yes… completely and utterly fucked. Excuse my language but “screwed” just didn’t quite get the point across. We wouldn’t be able to afford it. It would bankrupt us.
I hear the argument that you don’t want government involved in health care. But guess what? Someone has to be involved in it because you literally cannot afford it on our own. So, in place of government your employer handles it. And believe me, because I’ve been in the room where these decisions are made for my whole career. Your employer is VERY involved in your health care. It’s likely their second highest cost behind salary. So they tweak, and they strategize, and they do all kinds of things to protect you from the enormity of health care costs. They have entire departments dedicated to your health care and making you do what they want you to do. And guess what… you’re subsidizing big Jim who eats McDonald’s everyday… just in a smaller pool.
Some employers are really good at the healthcare game (to be good, they pay people like me and the companies I’ve worked for millions of dollars — which adds, yes more cost to the system) and some employers suck at it and negotiate bad deals for their employees — again, adding more cost to the system. Either way, it’s out of your hands. You’re not able to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and do it on your own. You’re dependent on someone else to subsidize your cost. (I believe employer-sponsored health care is one of the reasons we’re in this cluster but that’s another post for another day and dates back to WWII. I also believe lack of health care access is crushing entrepreneurship and risk-taking, but again, another post.)
So here’s my point about citizenship. I do not deserve basic health care any more or any less than the hairdresser or the artist or the entrepreneur or the businessman who just got laid off because of my career path. I am no better than these people, and they don’t “need to get a better job.” All of these people work hard and help make our country go round. All of these people deserve health care just as much as the next person. We live in the richest country in the world so whether or not health care is a right, I don’t care. We have the opportunity to provide it to everyone, and so we should. If I need to pay a little more in taxes so someone else can have health insurance and get their diabetes meds or chemotherapy or other treatment, I’m happy to do that. That’s part of being a citizen. That’s part of being a decent fucking human being. (Again, no other word was strong enough.) And it makes me an American who cares about other Americans.
So yes… we need to fix what’s broken in our health care system, but we should be doing it in public with hearings and debate and with the common goal of health care for all Americans. And that is 100% NOT what is going on in the congress right now. Maybe we should know what’s in the bill we’re voting on because it affects ONE FIFTH … ONE freaking FIFTH of the American economy. We as Americans deserve so much more from our representatives.
There are a lot of people I love dearly who cast votes for GOP candidates. (And, I think conservative principles can actually play a role in expanding access… if that is the goal…right now, it’s not.) Some of you disagree with everything I’ve written above about citizenship and taxes and low- to middle-class people. I think you’re the minority, and I’m not talking to you. But, I believe most of you agree that we should help our fellow citizens get access to basic health care. And so, please start paying attention to what is going on in congress. Please start thinking about who you cast votes for during the primaries and general elections. Please call your congress peoples’ offices if you disagree with their health care stance. Tell them you’re a Republican but you want your fellow Americans to have access to basic health care. Your voice will mean more as a Republican voter than mine will. Your fellow citizens really need you to pay attention. Their very lives are depending on it (And, that’s not irresponsible hyperbole. That’s literally a fact.)
