SickCare . . . Or the Lack Thereof

There’s been an infinite amount of talk about SickCare – and no, it’s not “health” care because it includes absolutely nothing to foster good health. Every news channel, every newspaper, pages on Facebook, endless Tweets. Nobody is making the point that WE ALL PAY the sick care costs of the more affluent and people with good jobs through increased prices for everything we buy. It is the poor AND SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS who don’t get paid sick care at work. Those not in favor of single-payer SickCare act like it’s manna from heaven for most USicans. In fact it’s built into the cost of our food, gasoline, banking fees, phone bills – all of the cost of all of the sick care for all of the employees of companies who cover their employees build it into the cost of everything we buy – and it’s part of why they say income is stagnant.

Decouple SickCare from wages. If the GOP wants to put everything into the private sector, get rid of every single employer and union paid sick care plan in the country – level the field.

I’m self-employed and I’m sick to death of paying for everyone else’s sick care insurance built into the costs of everything I buy. If I buy SickCare insurance for myself and my employees, I have to raise the prices to my clients. This is the root of people saying that SickCare mandates to employers cost jobs. The solution is not to get rid of sick care, it’s to get rid of employer-paid sick care. Now we have a problem we can deal with that’s clean, clear, well defined, and out in the open.

Pass the Bill with the modification that we completely get rid of ALL – ALL – ALL employer paid sick care – that includes Congress and all other government employees on every level. Now we have a “marketplace” big enough to generate competition. Right now we have three or four major SickCare insurance corporations that have divisions in multiple states. There is no competition – and that’s why competition won’t work as it is now – or just go to Single Payer – but not this one-foot-in, one-foot-out policy that is just another way of favoring those who already have money as the result of having great jobs at the expense of those who don’t.

The government says they want people to start small businesses. I’ve worked with startups and Micros for 20+ years and I can tell you that lack of good quality affordable sick care is a HUGE barrier to people wanting to start businesses. Someone has to keep a job with SickCare just to keep the family covered. If we’re going to go “Capitalist” and “free market” let’s do it – not pick and choose the parts that benefit the wealthiest the most and constantly enacting legislation that intentionally creates ever more people who need help. First, we enact legislation that strips wealth from the lower end – and many / most of them do work VERY hard – to benefit those who sit behind desks in cushy chairs pushing symbols of money around computer screens all day. Then The people who push symbols of money around computer screens all day whine about how “needy” and underserving the people they’ve just stripped everything from are.

The one thing that makes everyone happy is a sense that they live in a “fair” world. Above all, to Cause Less Pain, you have to strive to build our world to be FAIR to all.