Fair
You know, I remember being told when I was younger that life was not fair, but you know I didn’t honestly expect it to be this bad. I guess I shouldn’t complain. I do have a lot that other people are deprived of, a wife who loves me more than anything, a handsome intelligent son, a place to live, a car to drive, and a decent job that I am very good at. Still though, let us take a few cases in point.
Healthcare: I have to pay three hundred dollars a month for health insurance just in case anyone in my family gets sick. Of course spending three hundred dollars a month in case we might get sick means that if we do get sick we can’t afford the co-pay (unless of course we don’t mind not eating for a few days). I myself haven’t been sick in….at least five years (at least not sick enough to go to the doctor). My wife is the same way. Now we do have a son, and he needs to be seen as he grows up (as all kids do), but I think thirty six hundred dollars a year (plus the cost of co-pays) is a bit frickin excessive. That brings us to my next point in healthcare, having children. My wife is due in late august, and you might think paying thirty six hundred dollars a year for health insurance we would be taken care of to a certain extent. Wouldn’t you? Well you would be wrong; it is going to cost us over three thousand dollars out of pocket up front to have our next kid (when you count midwives, prenatal vitamins, birthing kit, and all that fun stuff). I won’t even go into how stupid it is that the insurance company will happily help pay a lot more for unnecessary surgery (C section) that can be full of expensive life threatening complications, and won’t help pay for a safe, cheep (at least comparatively so), reliable, and noninvasive midwife assisted birth. Whole stupid system is broken, if we just made a few dollars less a month we could get free healthcare, and if we made a few hundred dollars more the healthcare prices we do have to pay wouldn’t seem so bad (though maybe if insurance companies and doctors and hospitals weren’t so f’in stupid sometimes the costs wouldn’t be so high).
Education: Ok, here is what we have got. I pay hundreds of dollars a year to support an education system that is more concerned with teaching kids that they have to do what they are told and conform, rather than teaching things like reading, math, science, history, you know the basics. I make the obvious decision, home schooling. Now what happens to that money the schools would get for my kids, because the schools only get paid by headcount? Well that money just disappears gets sucked up by some wing of the government I guess (probably by No Such Agency, the NSA). Why can’t I just keep my money and use it to help educate my kid to the betterment of society? Oh yeah because it wouldn't get the government more money.
Work/Capitalism: Ok I won’t get into this one, I could rant for days. I mean really when did it become all about the bottom line no matter whose lives you crushed?
War: Once again, too big a subject to broach right now, but I do have to say shooting people who kill people to show that killing is wrong always works, and is always a good idea (really).
I was always under the impression that even though life is not fair (and we all know it’s not) that people as individuals would still try and be fair. I thought that people in power needed to be honest, and do the right thing. Heck, I remember when everyone actually knew what the right thing was, that life was important. I miss the country I thought I was in.
Even if it wasn’t fair, it at least made sense.
Healthcare: I have to pay three hundred dollars a month for health insurance just in case anyone in my family gets sick. Of course spending three hundred dollars a month in case we might get sick means that if we do get sick we can’t afford the co-pay (unless of course we don’t mind not eating for a few days). I myself haven’t been sick in….at least five years (at least not sick enough to go to the doctor). My wife is the same way. Now we do have a son, and he needs to be seen as he grows up (as all kids do), but I think thirty six hundred dollars a year (plus the cost of co-pays) is a bit frickin excessive. That brings us to my next point in healthcare, having children. My wife is due in late august, and you might think paying thirty six hundred dollars a year for health insurance we would be taken care of to a certain extent. Wouldn’t you? Well you would be wrong; it is going to cost us over three thousand dollars out of pocket up front to have our next kid (when you count midwives, prenatal vitamins, birthing kit, and all that fun stuff). I won’t even go into how stupid it is that the insurance company will happily help pay a lot more for unnecessary surgery (C section) that can be full of expensive life threatening complications, and won’t help pay for a safe, cheep (at least comparatively so), reliable, and noninvasive midwife assisted birth. Whole stupid system is broken, if we just made a few dollars less a month we could get free healthcare, and if we made a few hundred dollars more the healthcare prices we do have to pay wouldn’t seem so bad (though maybe if insurance companies and doctors and hospitals weren’t so f’in stupid sometimes the costs wouldn’t be so high).
Education: Ok, here is what we have got. I pay hundreds of dollars a year to support an education system that is more concerned with teaching kids that they have to do what they are told and conform, rather than teaching things like reading, math, science, history, you know the basics. I make the obvious decision, home schooling. Now what happens to that money the schools would get for my kids, because the schools only get paid by headcount? Well that money just disappears gets sucked up by some wing of the government I guess (probably by No Such Agency, the NSA). Why can’t I just keep my money and use it to help educate my kid to the betterment of society? Oh yeah because it wouldn't get the government more money.
Work/Capitalism: Ok I won’t get into this one, I could rant for days. I mean really when did it become all about the bottom line no matter whose lives you crushed?
War: Once again, too big a subject to broach right now, but I do have to say shooting people who kill people to show that killing is wrong always works, and is always a good idea (really).
I was always under the impression that even though life is not fair (and we all know it’s not) that people as individuals would still try and be fair. I thought that people in power needed to be honest, and do the right thing. Heck, I remember when everyone actually knew what the right thing was, that life was important. I miss the country I thought I was in.
Even if it wasn’t fair, it at least made sense.
posted by Shujinkou at 9:33 PM
2 comments
