“It’s all about money. They just don’t want to give more.” With these words, a woman I had just met explained to me why some people oppose Obamacare. The unspoken words I heard were, “People who oppose the Affordable Care Act are selfish. They don’t want other people to have good healthcare because their taxes will be raised to afford it.”
Leaving aside for the moment that I believe that the state of health care in this country will diminish and more people will receive worse care, I was still struck by the arrogance of her attitude.
Recently, my daughter and son-in-law were notified that they needed to find new health insurance. The insurance that my son-in-law’s workplace had provided, with which they were happy, was no longer going to be available. Due to the health care law, the premiums had gone up so much that the company was not able to offer that policy.
Thanks to Obamacare, my daughter’s family needed to sign up for new insurance. The only option they had was to pay more money for a different policy, less suited to their needs. The pediatrician and internist they have happily been seeing for years are not on the new policy, necessitating finding new doctors that, incidentally, are only available a substantially further distance from their home than the old ones were.
However, let’s say that they could have kept their doctors and the specific types of treatment they wanted. Let’s say that the only difference Obamacare made was that their premiums would go up. Let’s say that the new law was going to provide good coverage to those who had been without it, not from choice but because they couldn’t afford insurance. Surely, any warm-hearted person would be happy to pay more so that other people could benefit. I do believe my acquaintance pictured this type of rosy scenario.
Even if this utopian vision was closer to reality than the actual disaster that is taking place, she is lacking understanding. Higher premiums mean an increase in expenses. Since families, unlike the government, must live within a budget, this leaves my daughter with two choices. She and her husband can increase their income by working more hours with the result that they spend less time focusing on their marriage, children or community activities. At a certain point, each of these may very well make more people in need of government assistance rather than contributors to society. Alternatively, they can reduce expenses. While this woman may be picturing the lifestyles of the rich and famous, for this young family like for many others, reducing expenses means cutting back on very basic items.
“It’s all about money,” can condescendingly be said by someone who is more than comfortable. While the woman with whom I was talking can handle a tax increase without losing her jaunts to Europe and Hawaii, she is completely out of touch with the majority of working people. Similarly, those who live off the public dole (whether through welfare, as elected politicians, or via another path) often get routine increases tied to the cost of living. The real world doesn’t operate like that.
Most people I know work hard for their money. In doing so, they support a vital, functioning society. As we move in the direction of punishing people for working and being responsible with their earnings, more than health care will suffer. As people such as my conversationalist continue to blithely and ignorantly vote based on foolish platitudes, they will find civilization around them crumbling until they too meet the real world, in which what we do with our money actually matters.
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Thanks! I’m delighted that my comments are welcome. Like the umpire sez, “I calls ’em like I sees ’em.”
D. – Thanks for taking the time to rewrite your comment. You are spot on about parenting.
I lost my first post, so this time I will simply shorten it, to what I can remember!
I thank you for your site with its calm, sane discourse. I found you over the winter and you have served as a ray of hope in my thoughts and feelings concerning issues in the world.
Concerning this particular post, I sometimes feel my hackles rise when I run across the kind of thinking you describe here. Should I feel shame at wanting to control my budget, my medical care, my personal life? It reminds me of those people who derided my parenting, yet wanted their kids in my care because, as they said, they “knew their kids would be safe”. Yet in the case of your friend, she has not yet discovered who exactly is keeping this country as safe as it is, for her.
Sad to say, the ones most critical of my parenting had the most difficult children to keep safe. The underlying cause and effect was just too subtle for some to understand.
I knew I could count on you, James! I’ve been thinking the same thing. We’ve always prayed for good health, but now it is even scarier to think of getting sick.
So sorry, Ms. Susan. I suppose my comment got swallowed by the Mighty Internet. Here goes again:
Yes, it’s all about the money. It would be a fine thing if health care grew on trees like apples and pears in the Garden of Eden. Republicans have come up with other plans and methods to run health care and reduce its costs, yet the media have silenced every one or damned them with faint praise. The sorry, sordid little fact remains that the Democratic Socialist Totalitarians lied to us cynically, callously and categorically. A certain Speaker of the House cooed soothingly to us, “We will have to pass it so that you can find out what’s in it.” And the chief Fabricator assured us all, “If you like your health care plan you can keep it; if you like your doctor, you can keep him.” Dissimulation, prevarication and corruption.
Yes, it’s all about the money. A principal starting point in Saul Alinsky’s ‘Rules for Radicals’ is the programmed government subsumption of health care. It is a critical first step to rendering a populace docile and subservient, to own and control them lock-stock-and-barrel. Remember that Alinsky’s ‘Rules’ were dedicated to Lucifer ‘the first radical.’
Yes, it’s all about the money. We lost our excellent provider for a second-rate substitute. Our out-of-pocket monthly expenses have increased 40%, our co-pay 25% , our co-pay for specialists 100%, and our deductible has pierced the stratosphere. We had just bloody well better not get sick! And for what? To care for reprobates who choose on principal not to work!
Jim and Charity,
I truly appreciate your reading and especially commenting. It makes a big difference when I feel the Musing is a two-way street. (Speaking of which, where are James and Peter? I hope you reliable commenters are o.k.)
I agree with what you’ve said in this article and I enjoy reading your posts. I check for them every so often.
Since that lady can afford the Obamacare taxes and restrictions without pain, would she be willing to double, triple, quadruple her share so that somebody who is in pain already might have their load lightened, so their child could go to college or have a nice wedding or they could have a nice vacation or decent retirement?
When the liberal idea of income re-distribution hits home, the lights start to come on. Most of us would like to enjoy some of the fruits of our labor rather than have it ripped out of their hand and given away by thoughtless politicians. Charity is when we give from our own heart. When it is taken by force of government for such a purpose it is not taxation, but plain old theft. It is immoral to destroy an industrious person’s dreams for the sake of income re-distribution.
A good example of how bad this has become is on page 32 of the April 2014 issue of “Car and Driver”. It shows how government charity would have cost the nation far more tax dollars than the bailout cost that we all got to chip in on to save GM and Fiat-Chrysler. All this without any thought that the people who must fund this are already paying for the above average wages of the autoworkers in the form of the high cost of their cars.