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| Source: The People's Cube |
I recently got some very bad news re: Obamacare. I
blogged about that here.
When I talk about my ongoing struggle for my cancer care
follow-up, which ceased when Obamacare was implemented, and care for a new condition,
my leftist Facebook friends rush to defend Obamacare, often while ignoring or
denying what it is doing to me as an individual. I find this approach –
defending politically correct but demonstrably flawed ideology while ignoring its
impact on real human beings, including the human being to whom you are speaking
– abhorrent. It's one of the many reasons I am no longer a leftist.
On November 10, 2013, the New York Times ran "Daring
to Complain about Obamacare," an op-ed piece by Lori Gottlieb, a woman
who complained about Obamacare on Facebook and was chastised by her liberal
friends for doing so. Excerpts below
***
The Anthem Blue Cross representative who answered my call
told me that there was a silver lining in the cancellation of my individual
P.P.O. policy and the $5,400 annual increase that I would have to pay for the
Affordable Care Act-compliant option: now if I need a sex-change operation, I'd
be covered regardless of pre-existing conditions. Never mind that the new
provider network would eliminate coverage for my and my son's long-term doctors
and hospitals.
The Anthem rep cheerily explained that despite the
company's — I paraphrase — draconian rates and limited network, my benefits,
which also include maternity coverage (handy for a 46-year-old), would "be
actually much richer."
I, of course, would be actually much poorer. And it was
this aspect of the bum deal that, to my surprise, turned out to be a very
unpopular thing to gripe about.
"Obamacare or Kafkacare?" I posted on Facebook…Then
I sat back and waited for the love to pour in. Or at least the "like."
Lots of likes. After all, I have 1,037 Facebook friends. Surely, they'd
commiserate…my respondents implied — in posts that, to my annoyance, kept
getting more "likes" — that it was beyond uncool to be whining about
myself when the less fortunate would finally have insurance.
"The nation has been better off," wrote one
friend. "Over 33 million people who did not have insurance are now going
to get it." That's all fine and good for "the nation," but what
about my $5,400 rate hike (after-tax dollars, I wanted to add, but dared not in
this group of previously closeted Mother Teresas)? Another friend wrote, "Yes,
I'm paying an extra 200 a month, but I'm okay with doing that so that others
who need it can have health care."
Frustrated, I observed to one friend who was covered
through her work that when an issue didn't affect people directly, they became "theoretically
generous." Ask them to donate several thousand dollars so that the less
fortunate can have medical insurance — which is exactly what President Obama is
asking me to do — and I'll bet they'd change their tune about "ending
inequality" and "creating fairness" and "doing what's good
for the country."
Like Bridget Jones's "smug marrieds," the "smug
insureds" — friends who were covered through their own or spouses'
employers or who were grandfathered into their plans — asked why I didn't "just"
switch all of our long-term doctors, suck it up and pay an extra $200 a month
for a restrictive network on the exchange, or marry the guy I'm dating. How
romantic: "I didn't marry you just to save money, honey. I married you for
your provider network."
Along with the smug insureds, President Obama doesn't
care much about the relatively small percentage of us with canceled coverage
and no viable replacement. He keeps apologizing while maintaining that it's for
the good of the country, a vast improvement "over all."
And the "over all" might agree. But the
self-employed middle class is being sacrificed at the altar of politically
correct rhetoric, with nobody helping to ensure our health, fiscal or
otherwise, because it's trendy to cheer for the underdog. Embracing the noble
cause is all very well — as long as yours isn't the "fortunate"
family that loses its access to comprehensive, affordable health care while the
rest of the nation gets it.
The truly noble act here is being performed by my friend
Nicole, who keeps posting Obamacare fiasco stories on my Facebook page, despite
being conspicuously ignored, except for my single "like." It's the
lone "like" that falls in the forest, the click nobody wants to hear.
***
You can read the full op-ed here.
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