What Our Country's Current Attitude on Healthcare Teaches Our Children About Growing Up

I work in the Non-profit sector for my full-time occupation. I also have two other part-time jobs to pay the bills. One of those jobs, I work an additional ten hours per week on top of my required forty hours per week with my full-time job. I work this extra ten hours per week solely so that my wife and son can have decent insurance. I even took on a very part-time freelance writing gig to generate some more income. My wife is an independent contractor that has limited (and expensive) options for purchasing health/dental insurance for herself and my son. I write all of this to unfold a clearer tapestry of what has happened recently in terms of the security of my family and how it pertains to the manner in which our nation's attitude on healthcare is set up to hinder the motivations of our children.

The affordable insurance debate is profound, long-winded, and ultimately a timely one in the midst of a moderately unstable economy. It was much more rigorously debated during the first two years of Obama's Presidency, and has since been cushioned by some decent policies in response to the dyer situation of healthcare in our country. This whole scenario hit home two years ago, when I took a job at a Non-profit that offered a benefits package after six months of employment that was quite affordable to me, but bank-account-sucking to add my family. I made the decision to stay on the insurance and pursue other options for my wife and son. Inevitably, I was forced to choose between high-deductible/low premium or low deductible/high premium. I chose the latter, and it has done it's job.

Well, I recently was exposed to an insurance plan called MOHealthNet, an affordable health insurance initiative set forth by Obama's operatives. It is set up to provide "Missouri's low income and vulnerable citizens access to excellent health care in order to maximize their quality of life and independence." We are not a low income family, but nonetheless, I felt that not having access to decent healthcare benefits was in our range because of the nature of my work. I realize it would be easy to argue against this theory from a for-profit, significant-benefits-package perspective, so just keep quiet. Or provide a decent enough argument that trumps the truth that I only care about my family. More so, non-profit work has certainly stirred me to become more ingenuitive than most people with our budget.

I eventually began the process of attaining this wonderful insurance specifically for my son, because we made too much (we certainly don't make too much) to have both my wife and son on this insurance. After sorting through heaps of paperwork, turning in the required documentation to prove our moderate, lower-middle-class income, and waiting to hear the response, it ended up being a dissappointing "no," for none other than this reason: my son currently had insurance! Talk about irony. Forget the idea that it was expensive (on my budget), high deductible, limited health insurance and I have another job just to pay for it.

This is the state of current healthcare. In hopes of counteracting the revenue-dominating forces of the medical industry, our policies have made health insurance free to many who choose to not engage themselves in gainful employment and have cable/phone bills higher than my mortgage payment. In addition, the many who strive to achieve in life, are diligent at sorting through the details of budgeting, and simply want to narrow the gap between costly medical care and family needs, are left to navigate through the mucky waters of what to buy and how effective it will be when health concerns actually arise.

There is undoubtedly a subset of culture that are granted good family group insurance through companies that can afford it. There is a subset that does not have any health insurance for their family, either by choice or by misfortune. There are several spots in-between where myself and many others reside, where insurance is a maze of considering the unlikely traumas, not wanting to pay for them, but not being able to afford solid enough insurance to pay for minimal concerns.

My focus in writing this blog was about the prevailing unbalanced attitude of the majority of Americans regarding affordable healthcare. I am not an expert on the subject, but what I do know is how attitudes perpetuate encouragement or enablement. It is not to say that I deserve a break, or that others should get their acts together, but rather, effective judgment on matters of what is best for people considers the plight of the people. We do not remove mercy from those who choose to not work and have their bills paid for, but we do remove support as the just father and mother nudge their young out of the nest so they can choose to fly. Needless to say since pursuing MOHealthNet, I have had discussions with several people expressing to me that they are aware of many others, including friends, who do not work, have not worked in some time, and are sitting comfortably with some of the best insurance possible to use at their leisure. This upsets me. Not simply because I am impacted by it, but more so because the children who sit under the care of the individuals that reap unjust rewards from the government glean nothing. The children are to be taken care of as they are incapable of caring for themselves, but not by direct entitlement to the immature lifestyles of their guardians.

Summarily, I of course never forget the flipside. It is more effective to criticize the greedy. Their lessons are more easily learned, it is the poor on whom we show much mercy; just not at the expense of practical enlightenment.