I have mentioned this friend many times before in previous posts. An acquaintance that dates back to the late 1970's, initially a random college connection where he was a roommate in and amongst a number of forgotten semester long living arrangements be them in either dorm/frat or off-campus housing experiences. He is a friend best described as one who gets adopted by people (like me and my BFF) where we are more accepting or at least more empathetic, than others, especially him. In those previous posts he has has been one my best barometers of getting introduced to the most current Rightwing propaganda narratives, often the latest Limbaugh froths. He is a contradictory emotional file cabinet, overwhelmed by both his alcoholism and the idea that white male bred social status, is no longer predominate which he fears its lost status. Even his younger brother wrote a play where he has had some recognition about his brother's alcoholic RWism and their own broken relationship.
Early last year about six months after coming out of tough a 6-mo rehab at the Salvation Army my friend was again befalling to his alcohol addiction. Though unlike the earlier version it was not (yet) rocket fueled with Xanax. Ever since his mother passed in late 2011 he has been fortunate to have inherited enough to be a trust baby, beforehand he was an unemployed franchise broker for the immoral Countrywide. In fact he even was a supervisor for a short stint for the dubious B of A contracted call center that has been accused by Bloomberg purposely disrupting mortgage refinancing. But even there his inability to maintain a regular job regimen caused him to be let go from what was probably an assignment to do nothing well.
Yet I understand that his alcoholism is both an inherited proclivity from his mother's family and an untreated psychological/emotional disorder involving social/emotional anxieties manifested in his inability to truly be intimate to anyone, exampled by his failure to find a mate. After the last lost engagement back in the mid '90's when that woman realized he was just about taking. he became permanently infected by RWism through talk radio. This I now understand, as in moments of weakness and before drunken anger bouts he would often lament how the world had changed, where no longer can a man simply be a good provider and find a good woman to serve him. He once said that in the company of my wife where he got about a half an hour of sexist modern feminism earful. Yes he probably is a social psychopath.
Over the years be it in CO or somewhere else I have been separated to even talking to him involving consecutive years or extended months because of my lack of patience with his growing alcoholism, his selfishness and political beliefs, but like my wife often celebrates when I am not believed to be in my earshot I am the type that just can't turn out backs on a fellow human being or stray dog or cat if it is in need of help who is at least in our sphere. She talked about how I stopped and helped what was a 20 year old something fix a flat tire.
Now the point, as this October ranged with all things Obamacare failure I started to respond to his political agitations about that subject to ask when (not if, but when) he was going to access CO's Health Exchange and look over personal health insurance, he was proudly uninsured. He refused, angrily expressing all personal hatred for OBAMACARE and the mistaken idea of another failed government program, that its only purpose is to capture his personal income and health data, that he would only be helping a president and party that he loathes, (he was a proud Republican), and that he didn't need healthcare insurance in that he could pay for all the treatment he needs out of pocket, (BS of course), even though he also is a Type II insulin dependent diabetic (again). He would gladly pay the $95 fine.
But then on a day in November as his drinking got the best of him. He talked about how he was unable to walk into a state license bureau to purchase his vehicle tags or even write a check. That again he was going to try to self-medicate and go through home detox. I said he needs to go back to rehab and I would take him, that the Salvation Army would take him back for free! His response was that the Army was boot camp, and 6 months was too long and he was never going to do that again and he checked out other private detox/rehab centers and the was too much for him to pay himself that the cost $8-$12K+ a month and he didn't have health insurance.
WOW and opening, the clouds were parting! If I could get him to get health ins than the path was clear to get him to some private rehab/detox. I told him simply sign up on the exchange and all he had to provide was a statement that was true that he was not a smoker and he could get any number of private insurance plans. NO WAY NO WAY that is OBAMACARE!!! Forget the front end! There will be no subsidy or anything. he refused and didn't believe me.
Well now Jan 1 came and passed and of course he is worse, pop corning between 3-day detox and binge drinking plus he still is without health insurance. Then the day after New Years he got the news that the third roommate at his Salv Army stint had died, all three to some related health issue to alcoholism---of course. Now last week he again was detoxing where Thurs he called my BFF and was discussing how bad he was that he thought his kidneys were failing. He almost agreed to be brought to the hospital but then refused. The next morning I talked to him and then began to realize the obvious, he didn't want to go to the hospital because he knew if he did, they would find out he is not indigent, that has some boat load of money socked away in some off shore trust they would begin find a way to grab of course. That is his gravy train for life and it would be over. Of course he refused.
Thursday night I had also been talking with my sister in law who is a telecenter-agent for BC/BS, where she is on a temp assignment assigned to their retention group that was selling turnover individual policies in many Red States plus CO and CA. She was telling us that she had been carried over into the new sales group, yeah! But the big deal was that she became an expert in hearing or discovering that when RWingers, esp those in Red States who were seeking ins. refused to access their state or the national exchange that they just wanted to go private, (not knowing they were not seeing competitive bids from the exchange or having a chance to get a entitled subsidy). They didn't understand that ACA really was more about regulating the health ins world than setting up single payer etc...they didn't want a govt subsidy even if they qualified for it. They believed that merely touching the Exchanges would be a violation to their belief system and that they would have to give up some hidden personal info or go single payer.
AHA...A thought, have my sis in law call my friend privately and inform him that she could SELL him BC/BS private ins., never see a hint of OBAMACARE. That his deduct would probably be hit with his Type II Diabetic care for the year anyway and that if anything went wrong he was covered.
Yesterday afternoon my alcoholic friend called me said boastfully that he will be on private insur a week from Monday once a check clears and he gets the paperwork, no OBAMACARE, and less than he thought it would be.....blah blah blah....He never mentioned that my sis in law whom he had met a few times had called him or why.
What I didn't tell him is that he got the ins. because of Obamacare, that he never would have been able to sniff private ins if they had known he was Type II, treated for alcoholism, has other conditions like high BP, anxieties etc.....but now he is covered. YIPPEE, I said when your ins card comes send me an image on the computer so I know.
Now I can work towards intervention again, moving him towards getting him in a treatment program. But what dawned on me last night as my wife and I were with my sis in law for dinner was what she said in general discussing how my friend was her first sale before even being transferred to new sales. That many RWingers are probably hiding some kind of assets or income from the government. That they are fearful that it will eventually be discovered. That this was the big deal to many about the front end the Medicare application, an application that many had never been subjected to before, the result that so many RWingers thought all government aid is about how welfare queens stole from them as tax payers, that many were scared and adamant about that somehow the government was going to take away their stuff. They believed all the crap because they want to believe it.
Like my friend who is probably hiding money or thinking he is. Anyway, like Medicaid for the old, I recall that my grandparents had to get rid of all their assets to get aid when they were in their 90's. My father had to buy their house that was in the family going back to 1880's, when my great-great grandfather came permanently almost, from Canada with his father and built it themselves. They were illegals as were their wives, where my grandfather in 1897 was born in Canada at his aunts home. But always considered himself an American. Then as my grandfather was in his 90's the US govt still need to prove his citizenship and disputed a certificate of live birth. It was complicated but they couldn't get Medicaid until they were totally broke.
Yet this is success, now I have the means to get him back in treatment.