I process insurance claims, or deny request for services.
One letter that struck me when I first started—I’ve seen several like it since—concerned a man asking for more hours with his Medicare aide because of complications from a surgery had left him semi-crippled and completely blind.
We responded that his current hours were still enough.
So what if you’re now blind and can barely walk? No big deal. You don’t need anymore help just because you can’t see or move.
Home health aides are underpaid, but still cost money, and while this old man worked for decades for these benefits and still pays taxes on just about every purchase, he’s no longer a net gain for society financially. It would be cheaper for everyone if he just died, and if it’s a choice between your billionaire boss firing thousands of people or taking a 5% bonus instead of 10%, you’re going to get hounded into quitting or fired outright.
Corporations have firing people down to a science. No matter how well you do, they find something to complain about each month to justify firing you whenever they want.
Unemployment insurance is no longer the default decision, and it should be because you’re just one person fighting the entire system. If you’re “justifiably” fired, you’ll probably have to go to court to receive the money you’ve paid into the system since you started working, and this is a win-win for everyone except you. The corporation doesn’t have to shell out, and the Department of Labor has fewer cases to deal with, and this “justifiable” firing comes after months of torture. They corporation does everything they can to make your life so miserable you just quit.
Private equity firms are increasingly involved in housing, medical care, prisons, music, and movies, and as with Boeing, they don’t care about the final product. All they care about is growing as much as possible, or making their shareholders wealthy.
Music and movies are objectively worse because they’re dictated by algorithms. This is why when you’re listening to music on YouTube and they try to sneak in a song that’s actually a commercial, a part of your brain can immediately tell.
If you try to make everyone happy, you end up making nobody happy.
We call it the lowest common denominator for a reason.
There are algorithms that determine the number of people of color you can include in a movie to placate the left without enraging the right. They also tell us most hit songs are about 100 beats per minute, start with the chorus, are played in major keys, have about four chords, and are a little over three minutes long.
The same algorithms indicate a general dissatisfaction with contemporary movies and music, which is why private equity firms are buying up old films and music catalogs. Once they have the IP, they can recycle it.
This is also true of books. They stick with Patterson, who doesn’t even pretend to write his own crap anymore. The few books by new authors or Indie movies that come out are considered to be worthwhile bets by other algorithms. They have enough popular elements to have an expected value higher than their cost, and that cost plus the expected value is typically less than the tax break a corporation can claim if the product bombs.
If you write a book, song, or movie, you really have just one chance. If you manage to sell enough copies or generate enough profit, algorithms decide to give you more exposure. For Amazon, the standard was selling 100 books within the date of release, whether self-published or not.
There are older books that are finally getting some of the recognition they deserve, primarily due to readers and libraries discovering them, and most of these books have fewer reviews and sales than mine, and my books aren’t exactly setting the world on fire.
The essence of this problem in almost every aspect of life is the confusion between financial value and true value, or the lengths to which financial value has become increasingly detached from reality, and we are cutting ourselves off at the knees.
When a conglomerate buys the land trailer parks are sitting on and increases the rent by 60%, that’s money the poorest people can no longer spend on groceries or healthcare or anything else. Instead of contributing to the economy, they become considered “takers.” Your job is underpaying you, you have lousy health insurance if any, and you’re the “taker,” not the wealthy bastards who forced you to take out high interest loans or rely on credit cards just to stay in your trailer.
We live in a society that’s hellbent on under-employing, under-paying, and cranking out more poor, unhealthy people so a few billionaires can buy another yacht.
I work for a health insurance company and my insurance is lousy and gets worse every year. All I’m still covered for completely is preventative dental care, and almost no dentists accept my insurance.
If I got hit by a car, the first six thousand comes out of my pocket.
I floss and brush, but an old root canal got infected. The x-ray was free, but fixing the damn thing is going to cost me three thousand dollars, and all of my appointments are on Saturdays. This way, I can keep on working while burning half of the weekend on dental surgery.
I don’t earn a lot compared to people in NYC, but for my tax bracket, the standard deductible was lowered by over six thousand dollars. As a result, I paid eleven thousand dollars in taxes.
I save over half my paycheck, and I’m lucky enough to have bought a studio apartment and paid off the mortgage. I buy what’s on sale and cook at home, but the prospect of ever being able to retire seems more and more impossible.
Like Boxer in Animal Farm, they want to work me to death.
Today is my birthday, and every article I post is free. I don’t like asking for anything from readers, but if you want, feel free to buy me a cup of coffee. I’ve been trying to fight this, but it’s what healthcare in the US has boiled down to. You buy lottery tickets and pray or go to Kickstarter.
I hope you’re doing well, or at least better, and if you’re broke, save your money. I can at least afford this, and am reconciled to the fact there is no retirement for me until my last parent dies and I can go live in a cave.
If you’d prefer to get something for your money—and I’d prefer this too—my books are available here and here.
Thank you for reading, and rub a rabbit’s foot for me if you can. I’m an atheist and numerate enough to know buying lottery tickets is the same as throwing my money in the garbage, but at this point, I’ll take whatever scrap of hope that I can.
Happy Birthday. Harry.
You are right on, but the crushing dominant narrative is also Happy Stories. Hollywood endings that keep people believing the American Dream isn't a lottery. I pay over $1000 a month for health insurance plus 2 prescriptions. I'm 58 and have 7 more years of paying at this rate, if it doesn't go up, which it will. I'll be lucky to be paying less than $1300 a month as I approach Medicare age. That's $12,000 a year x 7 = $84,000 and probably closer to 100K I'll pay for crap benefits so I don't go broke if I get a catastrophic illness, IF Obamacare isn't repealed by the rapacious GOP bastards. My house and both cars are paid off and I live in literally the cheapest housing state in the country, Arkansas. I moved here because it was the only shot I had at semi-retirement (i.e. part-time work). The system is so screwed up it's unbellievable so keep preaching!