I felt my blood pressure rise as I was watching Sean Spicer, Trump’s Press Secretary, daily brief today. But his embrace of the millennial insurance dodger to make his point was the last straw.
Insurance is not a product
The party that preaches personal responsibility is now justifying personal irresponsibility to throw our health insurance into chaos. While my daughter, a millennial, was between work and medical school, we made sure she did the responsible thing. Her premiums were way under $300 giving her meager wages.
But as long as we describe health insurance as a product, we will continue to look at it as something that is optional, something for which corporations can have full price control. Just like water, food, shelter, and clothes are not an option; neither is health insurance. We should all feel responsible to not only have it but decide how it should be implemented as a society.
The problem is that we have allowed corporations to take over more and more services that rightfully belong in the domain of we the people, the government. In doing so, we have made many necessities products for which we have little control. Society must decide what portion of our services we cede to corporations.
Ceding health care insurance to corporations made it a product. Ceding our highways, airport terminals, etc.as Trump’s Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao implied, to corporations will make those for-profit products as well.
It is important to note that to get their will, Republicans are willing to justify personal irresponsibility. They want to make the point that Obamacare justifies millennials not purchasing health insurance and at the same time malign the individual mandate. It is a ruse. After all, their penalty in their plan is much more severe and will likely cause much more pain to the poor and middle-class, miss two payments and watch your premiums go up by thirty-percent. And guess what, the insurance companies get free access to sock it to older citizens.
Wake up folks and get to your Congressperson and Senators offices now, tomorrow, and until this Republican healthcare plan is buried for good. I went to my Congressman’s office today with four other people with documentation, facts, etc. We made it clear, we are activated and will ensure those that have never been involved politically, do so now.