Breathe deep, hold,...okay, now let it out... let it out, I said!

[lagilman]

Someone just told me that we didn't need health care reform because anyone who worked had access to it via their employer. I asked him where that left someone like me, a freelancer, or someone who worked under contract terms. He told me I should "get a better job." Dear Universe, why do willfully stupid people still breathe? And why does their stupidity not keep them from managing their way around a voting booth?

(at last he didn't tell me to marry someone with health care -- I would have had to ask him what gay freelancers should do, then)

Here. Have a moment of zen. I'll be in the corner NOT killing anyone.



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Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Darwin has failed us. Massive levels of Stupid used to be fatal . . .

[elizawrites.livejournal.com]

Unless they work for a small business which doesn't have to provide insurance! Or the insurance is too expensive! Or they work somewhere like Walmart that schedules people for less than 35 hours a week so they don't have to pay for insurance!

I do not know how you refrained from beating your acquaintance to death.

[lagilman]

My Super would have been sad about blood in the elevator. I don't like to make our Super sad, he's a nice guy.

[klingonguy.livejournal.com]

Oh no! You mean the stupid lives near you?

Please take appropriate precautions. According to the CDC, there are now airborne varieties of the Stupid. Inoculate yourself with a good book.

[chibiaingeal.livejournal.com]

Not to mention some employees aren't offered health insurance through their employer. Or that some people between jobs can't get Medicare and can't afford COBRA.

*deep breathes with you*

[lagilman]

Willful stupidity, as I said. "Well, it works for me, so therefore it should also work for you" and no ability/desire to accept that the world isn't one size fits all.

I can live with and accept truly stupid people -- they can't help it, mostly. Willful stupidity infuriates me (especially when I find it in myself, as I sometimes do, and have to yank it out by the roots. Self-examination of knee-jerk instincts is a good and useful thing, oh yes...)

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

Obviously this person doesn't know what affordable healthcare is if he thinks that we can get it from our employer. I work for a Fortune 50 company, and the healthcare is not very good. In fact, the only thing that's relatively decent (for the cost they foist on us) is the vision care plan, and that's changing this coming year. (Apparently too good, you know.)

You'd think that I'd be satisfied with my healthcare, but I'm not. I've seen the monthly costs more than double in the past 4-5 years, and I've seen shenanigans with deductibles for something as simply as a tonsilectomy which just drive you through the roof. A local hospital consortium is going to build a new trauma center for the west side of town about 2.5 miles from my home, but it doesn't mean a thing to me. Why? Because my insurance won't cover work performed there. We have to go 10-15 miles farther away instead to the central city because that's where the closest hospital is located that my insurance will cover.

You want to talk about efficiency, this is just nuts.

[illian.livejournal.com]

I would have had to ask him what gay freelancers should do, then

Marry a nice lesbian, I suppose . . .

Gah!

[allaboutm-e.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that what -- 67% of all health emergency related bankruptcies? -- happen to people WITH health care under the current system.

[ex-fashioni.livejournal.com]

Honey... why do you engage with the stupid people? Experience has shown, time and again, they ain't gonna get it.

[lagilman]

We made the mistake of talking about Maine (he agreed the wrong majority won) and it sort of slid from there, the way it does....

[booraven22.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'd be a bit apoplectic myself.
I AM employed and CAN'T AFFORD our insurance. With my husband unemployed we have limited income and limited options. To add insult to injury, I WORK FOR AN INSURANCE BROKERAGE.

Our HMO here cost the same monthly as my husband's PPO when he was still employed. (His parent company was in Canada...wonder if that had an effect?)
IT was choice between paying for the car or having insurance.

LAG, I admire your restraint. I would have beaten him with a fish.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

For the past three years when we renew our insurance there's a 'penalty' in cost to be paid if a spouse can get insurance separately. Never mind if you can actually pay the insurance, what only matters is that if it's offered. The penalty is not insignificant, either (something like $70/month).

It's like watching the credit card companies rush to jack up rates and fees in advance of the credit reform acts passed earlier this year; watching an obscenity in progress.

[anisosynchronic.livejournal.com]

"Don't look for sympathy from me if you get fired and then can't find another job."

I went without health coverage for years while freelancing/unemployed/underemployed. And I'm back to being unemployed, but am mulling over my COBRA options and such, and am getting calls from recruiters--as opposed to 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005... when most inquiries even about advertised job, got send to the dead letter, no response to email or phone call, bins.

[windrose.livejournal.com]

I worked in a tiny used bookshop for ten years, and they couldn't afford to give their employees health insurance. I suppose I could have quit and gone to work someplace else, except I'm physically incapable of working the hours required to qualify for full-time, full-benefits.

Gah. The stupid hurts my head.

[lagilman]

I begin, bitterly, to think that the only way to reform the system is to break it entirely, so that all employers stop offering it ("benefits? we pay you, that's your benefit") and let the stupid face a few hospital bills on their own.

Who knows, maybe then we can actually get treatment reform, too, and put medical insurance out of business...

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

You aren't the only one to think that. Insurance hides many ills within the system, and if insurance were required to convert to a non-profit instead of a for profit organization, things might also change.

[fakefrenchie.livejournal.com]

Stupid people slay me. I'm lucky to live in France, where for the moment anyway, I have single-payer good coverage. Of course, Sarkosy's trying to change that. He has some idea that health care should break even or even turn a profit!

[burger-eater.livejournal.com]

So annoying. Ask him if he wants his employer to choose his groceries, too. Or what TV he can own.

Or wave something like this (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/11/the_progressive_case_for_the_e.html) under his nose, and try to get him to understand why wages are stagnant and entrepreneurs are reluctant to strike out on their own.

Hmph!

[stef94.livejournal.com]

The Stupid, it burns!!

Lord knows nationalised health care isn't the be-all-end-all, but at least I can =get= insurance, regardless of how I am employed, despite a brief bout of anti-depressant use, despite having had problems with my knees since I was 12, despite having broken my wrist earlier this year, each of which would be sufficient grounds on their own for any US "health care insurance" company to reject me.

I truly admire your restraint in not decking the guy on the spot.
Idiot.


*focuses on the Zen*

[petrini1.livejournal.com]

He sounds like a very good argument for assisted suicide. But only if we get to choose who gets assistance.

I know a couple who have good jobs, but whose health insurance company refused to cover their daughter because she has diabetes, a pre-existing condition. Does this guy think she should get a job, too? She's two years old.

It boggles the mind that there are still people in this country who refuse to accept that our health-care system is broken, but blame its victims instead.

[lagilman]

It boggles the mind that there are still people in this country who refuse to accept that our health-care system is broken, but blame its victims instead.

Or think that "well, it's not good, but we can't afford to change the system, we have to bring costs down first." Dude, yes, we do. But we can't afford to have people having to choose between rent and food and medical care, either. Not if we want to be able to claim First World status.

Y'know, I bet if we took the tack of "*evil nation* is laughing at us, watching as we weaken our citizens for them to take over" we'd have health care reform in a week.

[lianneb.livejournal.com]

:Whimper:

I heard one writer speaking once, and he pointed out that it was a lot easier for writers to go full-time here in Canada than in the US, because in Canada, everyone gets health care. Period. In the US, many writers have to maintain that 'day job', or have a spouse who works, so that they can hang onto health insurance. And we still here semi-regular appeals because a writer without health insurance develops severe health problems and can't afford the medical bills.

And yet, single-payer universal health care is the devil in the eyes of a large, vocal segment of the US. I don't get it. Really, can someone explain that to me?