Friday, September 14, 2012

Two more of my hard earned cents!

... all for you, my gentle reader.  All for you.
 
Why yes, I do think it's time I open my big mouth on a little sumpin' here.  Spoiler alert:  This post contains opinions and thoughts that relate closely back to several fever-pitched political and social issues goin' down right now so be warned all ye who enter here and stuff.  So there.
 
This is what I'm getting at: Aunt Peaches
 
Now before we get confused, let's just all agree that I agree with her quite vehemently down to the last sticky fibers of my soul. 
 
And with that over, here is my two cents on the subject.
 
Insurance.  Let's skip over the whole industrial revolution lecture that tells us where weekends and child labor laws come from.  Let's hurry past the racial inequity history lesson that follows closely thereafter.  We all know those lectures and are kindof sick of them.  Let's just pause at the window display of religious tolerance for a few moments, as well as freedom of speech and then let's pick up the newspapers and cut out the articles about Hobby Lobby and, oh, let's say Chick-fil-A.
 
Good.  Now.  To summarize:  Insurance.  It's like Aunt Peaches eloquently said.  Insurance is an all-in kind of game.  I don't want to pay (specifically) to cover someone's heroine-addled daughter's emergency room trips or to pay for some child molester to get his colon-cancer fixed.  MORE specifically, I don't want to pay for heavy drinkers to get new organs or heavy smokers to get new lungs.  BUT, and let's think about this, I do want insurance to cover my birth control pills. 
 
Well.  That's tricky, isn't it!  "I'm not the one going wrong here!" my inside-me shouts.
"punish the wicked!", "let them starve!", "let the evil people of the world all die of cancer and hepatitis Q and we righteous folk shall all be the better for it!"
 
But then I think again.  And I hear another voice.  "Life is important."  I know, right?  tricky ground we're on here.  "People are important.  Even the shitty ones."  and that voice goes on to light some candles and sing some very nice songs about peace and love and happiness.
 
So let's get back to the game of insurance.  Insurance isn't about justice or good or evil as much as it is about a kind of gamble that "my sickness (or whatever) is going to cost more than the price of your promise to pay for whatever my sickness (or whatever) is going to cost."  Furthermore, when insurance becomes a nationalised thing, a mandatory thing, it's more like a promise that acknowledges that whenever I do get sick, I will have help paying for it.  It is a promise that I will have help paying for it in such a way as to maybe keep a single cancer diagnosis from bankrupting my entire family.
 
So now we're at a sticky part again because it's mandatory  and employers will have to pay for insurance for their employees.  Many notably Christian companies, good ones with solid reputations, great business plans and otherwise excellent employee plans, are resisting the mandatory part because one or two parts of the insurance they'd be paying to provide might or might not cover some kind of medical situation that doesn't clearly gel with the whole "Jesus is my saviour" gig.
 
On the cover, it seems like they're right to be skittish about it.  Except that if THAT is the reason they're refusing insurance...  it's wrong.  Are Jewish business owners trying to sue their way out of providing insurance to organ transplant recipients?  It goes against kosher law, right?  What about the Sikh business owners who have to pay for insurance for their employees who eat seriously non-vegan diets and then get some manner of diabetes or cancer or something.  They're not suing, are they?  It's just the Christians, and the squeaky-wheel ones I might add, who are proudly and loudly waving their flags and shouting to the skies above that they shall be in no part or in any way associated with a woman's right to make her very own reproductive choices ever ever ever ever with a cherry on top.
 
And that's why the Hobby Lobby law suit is wrong.  It's not about business at that level.  It's a wholeheartedly religious ticket.  And it's one that I can't support.  These squeaky-wheel-ers have no problem with infected tattoo's, heavy drinkers, chain smokers, any number of other lifestyle choice-based medical situations that diverge from the clean-holy path they're claiming to support.  They have no issue with covering treatment of promiscuous penis-es, uninflatable ones, or oral herpes.  The only issue is because they don't want to pay for insurance to pay for medicine that might, possibly, prevent a woman from getting pregnant.
 
And there it is.  Bright as day.  Even Jesus would look at that and cross his arms and ask people to come back to the table to talk about a better answer some more.  Don't you think? 
 
And please trust me on this one last caveat I'm about to make:  I have many, treasured friends who personally and proudly claim Jesus Christ as their lord and saviour.  I love them all.  And they love me.  And I have many friends who are Agnostics, and friends who are Jewish, and Hindu, and Muslim, and I EVEN have friends who are Atheists.  I love and am loved by vegetarians, meat eaters, hypochondriacs and non-vaccinators alike.  Don't they all deserve the same level of health care coverage?  As Americans, don't we all deserve the human dignity of access to doctors when we need them?  As humans, don't we all deserve a small chance at living through the first sickness, disease, accident, or trauma that barricades our paths to the future?

Insurance is an all-in game.  To cover one, we cover all.  If we don't like that so many X are having X procedure done, maybe we can address that as a national awareness issue instead of a legislative "I'm going to put you in jail if you try to go against my religion" kind of situation.  If we're upset that all the Y are using up insurance money to have Y procedure, maybe we should look at why Y procedure is so popular and important and address the issue behind THAT instead of saying "yeah, go ahead, but give us all your property and here's a cardboard box you can go live in for the rest of your life."
If we allow anyone to have any right over their own medical decisions, we must allow all of them to hae every right over their own medical decisions.  Pregnancy, gender reassignment, gastric bypass, organ transplant, and allergies alike.  Especially allergies, holy crap that stuff can kill ya!
 
And for fuck's sake, if you're willing to pay for men to be able to freely orgasm at any point in their lives, you are a giant, ignorant ass if you don't also allow women the right to decide to enjoy non-procreative sex at any point in their lives.
 
*inhale*  that is all.
 
Final note to you, who does not agree with me.  Please don't write me off.  Let's go to that table and talk some more.  Okay?  I heard there's wine.

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