[Part 2 of the “Nothing About Me” post will be arriving later this week; how it turns out may surprise you]
Today I’m musing over two struggles that have got my back up – a state that any reader of this blog knows is familiar territory.
During the last election, my late wife worked tirelessly for the election of President Obama. The run up to voting day came at a time when she could just barely still drive – the mammoth lumbering handicap van – and so one Fall Sunday she went by herself to Obama HQ in Boston to volunteer. But mostly she received spreadsheets of names and phone numbers on her computer. She sat in our living room day after day, calling person after person. She worked hard on every call, even when people were rude or worse. She “visited” with people, listening, asking after families – being the minister she was. I called no one, but did send a few checks that for me were unprecedented.
Mary lived long enough to be mildly disappointed in our new President, but not surprised. Now, goaded by a media with too much time on its hands, I’ve started thinking about what I’m going to do less than a year from now during the next election.
I’m not that much of a rube: I do understand that someone who meets my definition of “good politics” couldn’t get elected to the Sheepscot Board of Fashion, much less President of the USA. And that collecting the enormous sum of money required to be nominated as President, in spite of my wife’s best efforts, involves serial selling of souls. And I cannot conceive of a Republican who could divert my vote. And further still, the reduced circumstances of my retirement obviate a lavish monetary gift anyway.
So what’s the problem here?
As he does from time to time, Bill McKibbon turns my head, in his clean-cut precise way, to higher concerns. He’s been sharing his dismay at the apparent willingness of the Obama government to toss aside core promises about the protection of our world for what appears to be momentary advantage, like a guy who risks wife and family for an inconsequential fling. McKibbon’s smart posturing on the Canadian tar oil scheme has now stalled approval of the proposed pipeline that will drag terrible toxics into our country.
But now we know two things. One is that President Obama was prepared to throw a fundamental promise under the bus as casually as a used candy wrapper, until the shrieking got too loud. And second, what we’ve been granted is a postponement of the decision on this considerable environmental issue until after the election. The implication is: “Trust me.” And I think, “Trust YOU?”
Today’s related puzzle arises from a letter sent by the insurance company from which I buy a Medicare drug supplement policy. The company says they’re raising my co-pay on one med from $45 to $95. They suggest two other drugs they’d love me to take instead – at a co-pay of $4.
My back goes right up. Who is the boss of my heath care? Is it me? Is it my doctors? No, it’s some imperious insurance company. How dare they!
Then I think, so I’m now the defender of the big pharma company that sells the $95 co-pay drug? Shouldn’t I applaud playing hardball with the avaricious medicine rats who by profession relieve suffering and cause it at the same time?
For me the answer is, to paraphrase my grandmother: cholera on both arrogant insurance companies and greedy pharmaceuticals. The answer isn’t to choose between bad choices, it’s to create solutions that serve the interests of the people who are constantly victimized by those SOBs. For me, that means supporting the creation of regional cooperatives to run our entire health care system, top to bottom. I bank at a credit union and I shop at a food cooperative – and my money and food are secure and oriented entirely to my own benefit, and the good of my community. Why not my health care?
Who will mourn the demise of self-important insurance companies if citizen-owned coops replace them? Who aside from bought-and-paid-for politicians truly desires our present insurance-pharma dominated system?
Ah, my friends, “bought-and-paid-for politicians?” This brings us back to election promises. To Mr. Obama.
(Organic) food for thought…….
