Thursday, July 14, 2005
Damned stupid, irresponsible, non-rich people!
Looks like Steve Verdon and Mitt Romney think alike. All those damned irresponsible people who don’t buy health insurance need to be dealt with:
Believe it or not there are people out there who don’t buy health insurance on purpose. I think we should basically make such behavior punishable (yes, as in, “I’m sorry, you are just too stupid on this decision so the act of making a decision has been taken away. Now, pick your health insurance or we’ll get really nasty.")
After this baby comes, our health insurance bill every month will be more than our rent. And we don’t exactly live somewhere cheap. (N.B.--That’s without prescription coverage.) A couple grand a year that we likely won’t even qualify for isn’t going to help. Jay recently figured that our total healthcare expenses for the year will run over $11,000. You’ve got to make a hell of a lot of money before that becomes manageable. It’s insane to tell people that a significant percentage of their income just went “poof!” because you deem their choice of how to spend it *stupid*.
And you know, I object philosophically to the gubmint setting people’s spending priorities for them. To some extent they already do, since you have to pay your taxes before anything else or you can wind up in a pretty unpleasant situation. But the solution to the failure of one government program is rarely to institute another one, and that’s what this crazy-ass scheme does.
I also really hate to see anything that discourages self-employment and business creation, and you bet your sweet ass if it becomes a criminal matter not to carry insurance, and individual coverage continues to cost what it does, people like us are going to have to shut down the shop and go to work for the man. Going out on your own will be far too risky if another 10 or 15 percent or more of your income is dedicated to what the government says you must spend it on. That money might be the difference between getting off the ground or not, and it is not *stupid* to take the risk of getting sick in that time and use the money elsewhere. If you’re terrified that someone else might wind up paying, then make it impossible not to pay medical bills the way it’s impossible not to pay your tax bill or your student loans. But leave people the choice.
You know, I’m going to stop, because I could go on about this all fucking day. It’s wrong on a lot of levels, but I take it really personally because I live down here in the part of reality where living without insurance is an option that has to be considered. When it’s that or giving up a business that you’ve poured years of your life into, it doesn’t seem that bad. When it’s that or not paying the heating bill, it seems even better. And you’d better bet that if it ever gets between food and my babies’ mouths, I’ll tell anybody who tells me that I have a moral obligation to society to pay my health insurance bill first to go do something anatomically impossible with themselves.