Personal Choice, Charity, and a Cardboard Box

Posted on June 23, 2011 in Compassion Insurance

I don’t like mentioning this, but Lynn and I came to a decision some years ago. We could get by on her then much lower salary and insurance so we decided not to seek state disability, SSI, or Medicaid to cover my personal and medical expenses. There was no “I won’t take anything from the government because the government is evil” motive behind this. We both hold that the government offers the best and fairest way to provide health insurance to those who need it. ((Yes, we like the idea of single payer health insurance. It would eliminate a lot of infighting. Private insurance companies could still offer supplemental packages like they do in Canada.)) This idea that “I want people to get health care unless they happen to be black or have schizophrenia” strikes us as wicked. We want people to have health care, period.

It has always been hard for some people who truly need health insurance to get on Medicaid. There are also limits in the amounts that this government is willing to provide and that amount is getting smaller. Because we recognize that there are others who do not enjoy our relative affluence, we have chosen not to take advantage of the system even when, in poorer days, we could.

I know for a fact that there are reactionary Republicans who depend on the system, who manipulate their finances so that they can enjoy these entitlements. I know for a fact that there are followers of Ayn Rand who milk the government for all they can get. Paul Ryan — who now calls for abolishing Medicare and Social Security — got his education by saving the Social Security checks he received after his father’s death. We’re liberal-progressives and because we see the picture beyond ourselves, we choose to act in a way that supports the greater good. We cannot in good conscience act like these or support their hypocritical politics.

I cannot do otherwise because I know the faces of those who are in worse straits than me. If we abolish Medicaid as this wastrel Republican Congress proposes, I see many of these ending up on the streets. There have always been promises to help the mentally ill and other disabled, but no one ever comes through on these. The Republican plan for the mentally ill seems to be as it always has been: a cardboard box over a heating vent. The Tea Party and the rest of the GOP cry about “forced charity” but say nothing about “forced war-making” or “forced subsidies”. That they have zeroed in on charity betrays their essential lack of compassion. These are not Christians, but the antithesis.

Vote them out of office.