Lessons learned at an estate sale:
It is time to take this health care debate beyond the claim that the Republicans are pushing this health care bill because it is actually a tax cut and was promised to their wealthier constituents. Or to Trump’s involvement with the claim that he is interested only because he wants to take down everything Obama has ever done.
Put that aside and let’s take a look at what really is at stake.
The Health Industry in America is one of the biggest rip-offs around. It is the quickest way to level the economic playing field and to force the middle-class American public to continue pushing that ball uphill to the place where the rich get richer and the poor just have a harder battle to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads.
That is a big claim, so let me give you an example of what happens today with health care where it is currently in these United States.
As many of you know, we manage estate sales. In the process, we interact with people who are in a change space – their lives are transitioning from one lifestyle to another. That can be a good or a bad change space.
What about the ones in a bad place?????
How does that happen.
We just did an estate sale for a family where the mother died after a several year bout with Alzheimers. The family did not institutionalize her, she stayed in her home and the family took turns taking care of her with the help of health care workers. Every once in a while, but not often there was the trip to the hospital and once a short stay in a nursing home.
Because she lived longer than expected and the insurance ran out to underwrite some of the costs for the health care workers – the family had to sign their mother’s home over to the state to pay for her health care. The family was forced to sell the home so the lien could be satisfied. The state collected on the lien they placed on the home when the mother died. It was not a large, very expensive home, but it is where this woman raised her children.
She was a woman who worked to maintain her home – who paid her mortgage – who thought she was leaving her children a small nest egg to help them through their old age and possible illnesses as they age. None of that happened because of the cost of health care and the inadequacy of the current state of our health insurance. She worked hard her entire life and at her death she left the state richer – not her children – by the confiscation of her home with its mortgage paid in full. Her health insurance ran out because she lived well into her 90’s.
I thought of those people who died in their 50’s having used very little of their health insurance benefits. What happened to the reason for insurance – which is to average out those two people so things work out in the end. Under our current system the state benefitted from both people – the one who died young left the state well off from having died, after having paid into health benefits without use and from the older woman who died after a very long life and a miserable disease to lose her home and its contents and everything else she had to the state.
Apparently, theis does work out, but not for John Q. Public.
The rabidness of the wealthier class and the strong push to get a health care bill passed which doesn’t cover a third of the population looks to me like pure greed. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why, I just know the look and feel of greed.
This is simply another way to control. oppress, keep poor a society whose people will need to work hard just to keep their heads above water – with endless benefits to the wealthy..
After the experience of that estate sale, I understood more fully what is at stake when we talk about universal health care. Or even trying to get rid of the little relief people received from the limited coverage of the Affordable Health Care Act. I didn’t understand when all of that lobbying for the ADA was going on why the strong fight and what was at stake that made so many try so desperately to make sure the Obama bill failed.
What was tragic about that sale – it is not the only one nor is it one of just a few – nor did it happen because of some unusual circumstances – it is a common occurrence under our present health care system. And that sale was one of the more civilized way we strip people of their life’s work. Many are losing everything through bankruptcy because of illnesses and bills that have to be paid to maintain a sick relative or yourself. Those instances are not as civilized as the estate sale. To work with a family facing bankruptcy and still not able to provide the kind of health care their family member needs is beyond tragic.
I lived through Hillary Clinton’s attempt at dealing with health care when she was First Lady. She said a lot – most of which was called lying. And she and her husband were shot down as harshly as possible over any and everything. I wondered then what was at stake – it was clearly huge.
After her effort failed we all got to see why she felt so strongly about health care. She was not lying. She was right on target when she predicted that our health care premiums were going to start sky rocketing – and sure enough, monthly health care bills for many of us doubled and tripled very quickly after that. It there became crystal clear what was so urgent about getting better health care for everyone.
Sometimes, all we need is a little actual experience to understand the dynamics and what is beneath the surface when something like this health care argument is going on.
You, wealthy American, may be fine and what you are doing may seem to be to your financial benefit. Let me give you a word of caution. Your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren are going to grow up in the society you create. While this benefits you, it just might give them a horrid life that they will owe to your greed, selfishness and inability to see beyond your own gold-plated nose.
And joining the frey is Bernie Sanders. The man who put out all kind of horrible images and names for Hillary Clinton. Some say he laid the ground work and fertilized the land so Trump could reap a great crop. Whether his actions were intentional or not, the end result was the same.
And so it continues.
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