If you are, or have ever been, on a public benefit program like Medicaid, you might already know how destructive it can be. Not to government or those who fund it—which is basically us, through the money we give via taxes over our decades of working—but to your health.
If you are, or have ever been, on a public benefit program like Medicaid, you might already know the spirit-crushing experience of being treated like a parasite. An ungrateful one at that. How easily your lifelong efforts and devotion to doing good work are forgotten once you are no longer the giver, but have become the ‘taker.’
And if you are, or have ever been, on a public benefit program like Medicaid, and have dared to want not just any old healthcare service, but good or God forbid excellent, expert, kind, honest healthcare service, you might already know the serious harm to your physical and mental health that can be caused by the disrespect and impropriety delivered by those who are supposed to be protecting your health. Perhaps in their view because you are asking too much — that is, more than you are paying for at that moment.
Now you might even have thought to yourself, Well, it’s free after all, so I should just be grateful about whatever you are tolerating from those who are supposed to be caring for you. But here you would be wrong. Not only did your lifelong payments of income taxes help fund the public benefit program you are now receiving, but if you have ever owned a home, you also have paid tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars to help fund services for the needs of others. For example, property taxes pay for public schools and other services that benefit everyone in your region, regardless of whether they benefit you directly. You don’t view those others as undeserving, do you? No one would dare think that families whose kids rely on public school are parasitic or ungrateful.
All public benefits programs are for the good of the public – all of us. The kids your taxes helped educate grow up to impact our country and its people, just as someone on Medicaid could be the one who, thanks to being alive and well in the world, saves someone’s life in an emergency where no doctor is around, or might be an important volunteer for a community or charity.
And so my New Year’s wish for you are these realizations, the willingness to talk about them to everyone you know, and the ability to find what you want, need, and deserve in 2025.
