From time to time you read or hear a heartwarming story about a community coming together to help a family pay monstrous medical bills, or people giving up vacation time so a co-worker can receive medical treatment, or some other glurge that is supposed to restore your faith in humanity. These stories are certainly inspiring – but when you peel away the unicorns and rainbows, you find the hideous reality underneath.
In the United States, GoFundMe is one of the largest health care providers. At least a third of all projects are families begging for help to pay medical bills. And, unfortunately, there are a few fakes out there, which are not always easy to spot.
What kind of country are we that can spend trillions on defense and billions on tax cuts for mega-corporations and the ultra-wealthy – but blanches at the idea of providing everybody with affordable, if not free, health care and higher education? What kind of country allows insurance companies to d*ck around their customers with weasel words about “experimental treatments,” “pre-existing conditions,” et cetera? What kind of country lets children go home with “I Need Lunch Money” stamped on their arms? Whoever came up with that last idea could frighten Darth Vader into a dead faint.
The not-so-great USA is a hellhole of increasing disparity between the rich and poor, where a traffic ticket can balloon into a debt of over $10,000, where people seeking a good education so they can get well-paying jobs instead find themselves saddled with loans that they have scant hope of ever paying off, where millions of people – many of whom have other mouths to feed – are literally one broken arm from the street. People are working multiple jobs but still unable to make ends meet, even though they are pinching pennies until Abraham Lincoln begs for mercy, shopping at thrift stores and subsisting on beans and ramen. Meanwhile, the rich get richer and richer, at the expense of the Little Guy and Gal.
Stories about people taking heroic measures to help those in need certainly revive one’s faith in humanity, but many of them shouldn’t have happened in the first place. Children should not have to sacrifice their allowances and yard-mowing or lemonade stand money so their classmates can eat – schools should have enough money to provide healthful meals to all students for free. A high school robotics club should not have to construct a special wheelchair for a child with a serious birth defect because the parents’ greedy insurance provider wouldn’t cover even a nickel.
You’ve probably seen a bumper sticker, T-shirt or button that reads “It will be a great day when schools have all the funds they need and the Air Force has to hold bake sales in order to buy a bomber.” Our country’s priorities are utterly messed up when providing the rich with tax breaks, buying more weapons, supporting an apartheid regime, and subsidizing industries hostile to the environment are all more important than feeding, educating, housing and medicating the people.
Stories about people coming to the aid of those who really need it are truly inspiring, and remind me that people are basically good. However, in far too many cases these altruistic acts should not be necessary.
Here is one list of dystopian horror stories
7 Responses to “SOUND OFF! 7/3/21”
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What kind of country are we? A blatantly mis-led, electorally abused, Nixon/Reagan loving, Dumpy kissing, religiously hypocritic, “shit-hole” country, more full of bigots in the 21st century, than ever imagined!
Thanks Freya–I’d add it also exemplifies that our government’s values and priorities, which are reflected in the budgets they choose, are as disparate as the wealth gap from what most of the people’s and voters’ values and priorities are. Read this morning that Bezos’ wealth is more than the GDP of IA.
Freya, you are so right. These stories should not be necessary. Sane peole know that. But it is the way it is because corporations – and therefore Republicans – want it to be this way. And between them they have played upon human beings natural instinct to think (or maybe feel woud be a better verb) that bad things can’t happen to them to perpetuate it.
I don’t know what the solution is. I can state that, until we have serious Federal voting rights legislation in place (and a Court which will uphold it), health care is never going to imporove. And I can add that we don’t have much of a window for the legislation, and that we need some kind of drastic action to reform the Court.
I agree – we need some DRASTIC reform. A lot of our systems need serious overhauls. But good luck getting anything done when Rethuglicans control half of the Senate, and the Supreme Court is stacked in favor of right-wingers!
I agree with your statement that our country needs major reform. I would think that companies, especially now after Covid-19, would of wised up regarding pay and benefits for their real workers. Them paying their CEO high wages is a flipping joke. The ones who are producing and are making profits for their company should be the ones being paid.
Our country needs to be for the people. Helping them when tragic events happen.
Hopefully our voters can start doing more at getting these rotten Repugs out. They’ve done nothing for the people they represent. They’re like the CEO’s of big companies making high wages doing nothing except causing chaos. Get rid of them all.
Thanks Freya
After the I-need-lunch-money stamp on schoolkid’s arms, I needed those examples of altruism you gave after that, Freya, even when they in themselves were indirect examples of more horror.
No, those altruistic deeds definitely shouldn’t be necessary but they at least give us some hope that the human race can still redeem itself.
This made me want to cry. It is repulsive that we live in the richest country in the world and people are reduced to begging online to help get their medical bills paid. Why is that happening? I agree with the T-shirt idea. I would love to have one! I would wear it proudly!
And woe be unto the one that would say anything to me about it! I live in OK and it’s the most backward and deepest red state there is! I wish I could move, but alas, that ain’t happening.
Just thought I’d drop in and say Howdy to y’all! Keep on truckin’!