I am a self-employed artist and business consultant who doesn’t have health insurance.I mean, I eat healthily...exercise...have a remarkably “clean bill of health,” but if I were stricken by disease or a garbage truck, I would go broke. If I didn’t die first.
Health insurance costs more than I want to pay right now. I looked at my options, weighed the consequences, chose to pay off personal debt, take a vacation, buy presents for my family at Christmas...have a cell phone and a home. You know, basic life stuff.
I’m also highly motivated to earn more money. Possibly to buy health insurance. Or maybe to go to Europe...or get HBO. I haven’t really decided what I’m going to do with the more money I make. But I am definitely working on it.
I am taking a risk without any having health insurance. I understand the risk. I enter into the risk voluntarily. I don’t feel scared or anything. I feel...confident. I feel like an adult, frankly. I’m proud of myself...as corny as that sounds.
And there’s another thing. I don’t think it’s fair to expect someone else, someone wealthier than I, to pay for my healthcare. It makes me feel kind of irresponsible, actually. Like a kid who messed up, or didn’t really think about what he was doing, or got into a jam and now needs to be bailed out.
I didn’t screw anything up. I’ve chosen a life, a career I love. I love what I do. Wouldn’t have it any other way. There’s no healthcare in this life I’ve chosen, but there are amazing people, creative challenges, and the promise of great personal and financial reward.
Well...apparently, the United States government has just decided that I will be health-insured now (ostensibly for free). It’s no longer my choice. And if I can’t afford it, no problem. Rich people will pay more taxes. They’ll cover me.
I think that makes me one of Speaker Pelosi’s “entrepreneurs” who will now be “unleashed” on the American economy. I am now “free” to take risks, “forget my day job,” and write that novel!
Well, thanks...I guess. I’d kind of already started all that without free heathcare. You know, I’d actually began to feel kind of happy about it, too. Brave. I felt confident in my decision on how I would live through these lean years. But now I feel...not confident anymore...more...beholden. That’s it. Beholden to my government.
I feel like I need my government...more today than I needed it yesterday.
So. A simple request. Of my government...recently beheld.
May I have a new car, too?
brilliant
ReplyDeleteLet's say you'd gotten into a terrible accident without healthcare. Who would've paid for that? (after you bankrupted your family)? The government. You needed your government before this, too. At least now, the insurance companies will take some of the brunt if you get sick, and it won't all fall on the taxpayers.
ReplyDeleteWhat my family can't immediately pay of the care provided me becomes the burden of my providers...the private hospital and physicians who gave me care. These entities would propose a payment plan for the remaining expenses. As I am not enrolled in Medicaid, no taxpayer is at risk.
ReplyDeleteI don't oppose government health insurance for the poor. I am wearied by my government's unblinking intrusion into my private life and business.
I need my government far less than it thinks I do...and that deeply offends me.