Yesterday, I received my DailyKos Community Quilt! I've posted a thank you diary here. I was excited and wrote it last night and posted late. Now, I'm concerned that all the lovely people who contributed won't see it. Will you please give the diary some love?
While I'm not a big fan of the governmental system we have in place, I do get concerned when people think we don't need a government, at all. Or that no one should need help from the government. The meme that people should just rely on "community" feels like false logic. Isn't the government our largest community pool of resources? Are we not, as a nation, a community?
Beyond the narrow use of the word "community", there is a real need for a government, which represents all the people and has the power to protect the vulnerable. Here's my one little lame example of why:
I got sick. Very sick. So sick I could barely walk, maintain a conversation, etc. It took two years for docs to figure out I had Lyme disease. Not because it was that hard to figure out, but because medical insurance is a for-profit industry and medicines and medical tests, etc are all for-profit industries. Insurance companies are motivated to take your premiums and do as much as they can to deny you care. Or even tests. In my case, though I was given a screening test for Lyme when I went originally went to the doctor, I was not allowed to get another, more accurate test because insurance wouldn't cover it.
Not only would they not cover that, they would threaten the licenses of doctors who did more testing, even if I paid out of pocket for the test. They also threatened the licenses of doctors who gave more than 30 days treatment to patients. At a minimum, they would end their relationship to the doctor. This would cripple a doctor's practice because patients can't afford medical care without insurance coverage. One doctor who tried to help me was driven out of practice by insurance companies and a local hospital when she tried to get "pic" lines inserted for a couple of seriously ill patients who needed intravenous antibiotics. Both the hospital she sent them to for the procedure and the insurance companies where the claims were made, reported to the state board of medicine that she was "over-testing" and "over-treating." For these patients, it was the only treatment anyone was even willing to try, because every doctor in the state knew what would happen if they tried to help a Lyme patient. In the Lyme community, we saw this happen all across the country. (there is a complicated story of many layers of financial conflicts of interest which lead to how insurance companies can get away with this.)
Finally, Lyme patient and doctor advocates had to go to the government and demand a law stopping the insurance companies from doing this. Insurance companies were told they had to cover what the doctors thought was best for their patients. Similar laws are being advocated for on a state by state basis, as there is too much corporate resistance to getting a national law. We are trying, but years of advocacy have gotten us nowhere at the federal level.
I spoke at the State House hearing to get that law passed in MA. I had to have assistance getting there. I could barely tolerate the light, the sounds, the smells. I was in excruciating pain from head to toe. I could barely remember why I was there. Still, I testified. But, I had already had to pay thousands of dollars and go out of state to a doctor to get the tests I needed which showed that I did, indeed, have a nasty case of Lyme disease. (that screening test is only 45% accurate. but corporations will lead us to believe that this is ok, if it means more money in their coffers.)
Fast forward. Because I had to go out of state to find a doctor (whose office is actually as close as some parts of this state) I struggle to get insurance to cover my visits to him. Or to cover what he prescribes. We had to figure out how to work the system such that my treatments are covered. (Some of what I need is still not covered and I can't afford it, so it doesn't happen.) Because of the history of Lyme disease in the medical field, I cannot find a comparable neurologist, with the understanding of the resulting auto-immune disorder (which I probably wouldn't have acquired if I had gotten fully tested early on.) Though he's a leading practitioner in his field, with published studies and is constantly being recognized, the insurance company won't cover him. Why being over an imaginary line in the ground matters to a health insurance company which offers coverage nationwide, I don't know. Except that it probably has something to do with money.
Now, the treatments I need for the auto-immune disorder cost between $11,000 and $17,000 per dose. That's right. Welcome to auto-immune disorders and human blood products. I could have the strongest local community in the world around me and I don't think they could muster up the resources to pay for this, which I may need in perpetuity. Besides, I have paid for health insurance since I was 18. 32 years I have put money into the coffers of private insurance companies. I have rarely needed to withdraw. A very minor surgery in my 20s. The whole point to using an insurance system is so that we are covered if we have catastrophic need. But, since it's a private system and it's tied to employers, you can end up having to change providers, often. Each new one doesn't care that you've been paying to be insured for decades. They don't care. They want to save money and so they will do whatever they can to deny you services.
It can't be said enough that they simply don't care about you. You are not their concern. You are a number in an actuary table. Profits are their concern. They are legally obligated, as a for-profit entity, to make profits their highest priority. They will do anything they can to maximize profits - with zero concern for the human or ecological impact - unless a greater power blocks them.
For all the things I hate about the Affordable Care Act - mainly that it's getting us further entrenched into a private insurance system which screws people over and a for-profit medical system which keeps ratcheting up the cost of care - my life is saved by the presence of MASS Health. I can't be denied insurance.
That doesn't happen without an overarching government. Bullies will always win the day, if the people don't have a central force strong enough to make them back down.
And I'm in the privileged demographic of white. People of color probably wouldn't even exist or they would still be in shackles if it weren't for the unifying force of a government. In reality, they still are. We just figured out a way to make it look better on the surface. (see "The New Jim Crow")
The problem with government isn't that it helps too many people in need. It's that it is completely beholden to the elite ownership class. It only serves them. It gives token service to others just keep the masses at bay. Almost every member of the government gets into that class by serving the interests of the elite while they are in office. Every single aspect of our culture and governance is corrupted by a sacred bond to ownership and property and capitalism and manifest destiny. We worship at the altar of the wealthy, as though they are not the pathologically selfish and greedy people they are. When a wealthy person gives away a bit of their wealth we treat them as though they are angels. We're so enamored with the idea of being rich, that we allow ourselves to forget that, in order to get rich, you have to exploit others. You have to believe that you are worth more than everyone around you. You have to be willing to extract more resources out of the economy for yourself than those who work beside you. You have to be willing to buy a multi-million dollar home for yourself while people go homeless. You have to be willing to eat $2000 meals while others starve. Pretending to be nice and generous, while you are still accumulating more of our resources while other people suffer is the biggest con game I see in the US. Try telling people why you don't admire Oprah Winfrey and see how they react. We completely ignore the horrifying effects of greed, as though it doesn't exist and isn't a problem. Greed kills. History has shown us again and again that greed kills. Yet, we still celebrate the greedy.
We need to rethink why we have a government, what purpose it serves and how best to ensure that it continues to serve that purpose and is not hijacked by greedy, heartless people who would destroy lives and the planet in order to have more, more, more for themselves.
But please don't start the critique by telling people who live within and are completely oppressed by the system that exists, that they shouldn't be needing help. It is recorded throughout human history that people are never simply left to carve out a life for themselves. There are always heartless bullies who come along to abuse and exploit them with the use of force. Some people may experience pockets of a nirvana where they are surviving within this culture and system without any help or resources from anyone or anything outside of their immediate community, but that is the exception, not the rule. And, if too many people made that happen, the exploiters would not sit quietly and say, "oh darn, I can't get them all to give me all their time and resources, oh well." We must work together to proactively generate a different culture based on the right to a sustainable life, a culture of consent, a culture of empowerment where no one has power over anyone else. Until we have figured out how to keep the predator humans at bay - which begins with rejecting them as admirable - it is completely unfair to expect that those with the least power are supposed to just sit back and figure things out for themselves and not rely on the resource of their government to help them out, when it deigns to be bothered at all.