This is a diary in the truest sense of the word because what I am about to share literally happened today. First a little bit of background so you understand the context.
I work in Optical, I am an optician at an eye doctors office. I have been doing this since 2001 with a brief sabbatical in 2008 when it seemed like everyone was unemployed. I have only been at my new job for a few months. But since day one I have had to silently put up with my boss (who is Mormon and thus extremely conservative) talk shit on Obama.
Pardon my French but there is no other word for the filth Conservatives spew when talking about Barack Obama. It's 100% Grade A, quality bullshit. But I digress..
Obviously I would love to put the figurative smack down on him when he starts blabbing about Obama being a communist, or any of the other non-sense rants he gets off on now and then. But I really REALLY need this job so I just keep my mouth shut and pretend I don't follow politics. I am really good at pretending to be a-political. The sort of uninformed, non-voter you always hear about. The apathetic. The disaffected. It's actually an easy act to pull off. The hardest part is not opening your mouth.
I have had lots of practice doing this. At my old job (at which I worked for about 5 years) my old boss was the exact same way as my new boss. I don't know if all Eye Doctors are Neo-Cons but all of the ones I have met seem to be. Maybe its just where I live.
Anyway both my current boss and my former boss absolutely despise the State Sponsored medical coverage we have here in California called "Medi-Cal" and one of the main things Medi-Cal covers is eye glasses and exams. Like Medicare, it works as a safety net for people who cannot afford normal insurance.
Now to be fair there is a lot to not like about this program.
First off it is abused LIKE CRAZY. Rich people (we're talking about people who drive Audi's) who aren't supposed to qualify for Medi-Cal will buy a $500 dollar pairs of glasses and then whip out their Medi-Cal card to get a free second pair from the State. Yet other people are denied because between the two parents they barely make too much to qualify. To put it bluntly the system is broken.
You also end up with a lot of lower class clientèle, and all of the fun that comes along with that including but not limited to, drunks, druggies, the homeless, theft of merchandise, rude and disgusting people who just hang around all day like they have nothing to do.
But overall it is a good entitlement that helps a ton of people. And as a result I would guess about 65% of our business (at least right now) is Medi-Cal patients. Partly due to the poor economy. And while they take a little longer to issue payments to offices, they always pay. No questions asked. Most of the paper work part of it is on line and automated. Its actually very efficient for a Government program.
My point is the good out weighs the bad with Medi-Cal.
But my boss doesn't see it that way. And neither did my old boss. They often viewed Medi-Cal Patients as a burden. Free loaders who use up tax payer money and are pushing our nation toward a system of Communism. Both my current and former bosses talked at length about how it shouldn't even exist. That it steals money from their pockets and if everyone was on Medi-Cal their offices would go under.
Recently the State Of California announced that as of July 1st Medi-Cal will no longer be granting Vision or Dental benefits to anyone over the age of 21. A far cry from eliminating Medi-Cal altogether but still a large chunk of the Medi-Cal population. Now these people will still have regular medical coverage. And anyone under 21 will not be effected at all. But for people 21 and up (and this includes seniors) there will be no vision coverage.
Now at first it may not seem like that big of a deal. But on a daily basis I see people who cannot see their own hand in front of their face without glasses on. People with 20/1800 vision who wear eye glass lenses that literally look like magnifying glasses. How are they supposed to function without glasses? Let alone drive, or work or leave the house at all?
But besides that having heard the news my current boss ran some numbers and determined that about 80% of the Medi-Cal Patients he has seen since he opened his doors were over 21, most were seniors. That means 80% of the roughly 65% of his clientèle are automatically ineligible for new glasses come July 1st.
Make no mistake this is bad news for me, if the office closes I am out of a job. But I couldn't help and laugh when he started freaking out about it. Arnold Schwarzenegger gave every Republican a great big present by eliminating Medi-Cal for pretty much anyone old enough to work and now my boss is finally realizing 'oh shit, thats bad for business' so now he is calling and booking every Medi-Cal patient over 21 he has a record for an asking them to come in before July 1st. He actually plans on keeping the office open until midnight on June 30th so he can see Medi-Cal patients and make that money all the way down to the wire.
So, just out of curiosity I called my old employer (my best friend still works there) and asked how she was taking the news. They hadn't heard about it yet so when I told them, and they verified it, they too started freaking out. Apparently a large part of their patient base was Medi-Cal as well.
The point of all of this is that even Conservatives don't believe in Conservative ideas when it hits home. It only took a REDUCTION of how many Medi-Cal patients they could see to switch them from "Death to Medi-Cal!" to "Death to Schwarzenegger!" Imagine if they had dismantled Medi-Cal altogether! These two Doctors were totally opposed to all forms of socialized health care until they saw first hand how their fantasy land Neo-Con ideals actually work out in the real world. I kid you not BOTH of them remarked on how if anything the state should be expanding coverage not cutting it.
Hilarious right? It took a jolt to the pocket book for them to realize more people covered = more business for them. I honestly don't know how they managed to become doctors with such little brain activity.
For now my current boss has basically fooled himself into believing those over 21 on Medi-Cal will dump Medi-Cal and buy some other form of vision coverage from another insurance provider come July 1st. So he is actively researching which provider that would likely be in an attempt to be ahead of the curve. But honestly, I don't think many people will switch. If they had the money to buy insurance they wouldn't be on Medi-Cal and if their kids are still covered they're not going to drop it so they themselves can get glasses. Especially since all of the medical coverage is still there. Most people can go without glasses for a long long time.
You're going to see adults and seniors toughing it out, squinting their way to work every morning and squinting their way back home every night. The ones with extremely high prescriptions will either go without or they will save and eventually pay out of pocket. But it won't be every year or even every 2 years like it was with Medi-Cal. They won't come in until their current glasses are totally useless or broken. So no matter what happens optical offices will be taking a hit.
I for one am worried about my job. But I have seen California make cuts to social programs before and they almost always backtrack before too long. Hopefully this will be the same way. A temporary cut until the budget is straightened out or enough pissed off people pressure them into fixing it.
If not I'll just have to hope some form of nationalized (universal) health care system is set up so Medi-cal becomes irrelevant and people can afford to see again.
I'll keep you posted as this story develops.