Dear People who work at companies,
We write the jokes. We write your music. We start the companies that fail, but sometimes succeed. We produce your reality [television]. WE are the people who take the chances. We also in most cases have to go it alone. We ARE the CREATIVE MINORITY.
YET– We, together, have virtually no special representation in government. We are taxed more. We don’t have an interest group.
We DO have power though. We’re the ones that step out of line. We know how to write the jokes. We know how to effect your minds through imagery. When we DO get together you notice things, but just like atheists, we tend to not all pray to the same god (or any god at all). As the ones who may not even realize our powers of manipulation, those of us who do are often afraid to use them for our own purposes because we think its tacky. We CREATE things. Without us– nothing new. Yes Jesus himself started out this way.
This is the Creative Minority.
So when Bill Clinton said that Obama should honor his repeated commitments to let us keep our health insurance, and mentioned the young people involved here– let me put more of a face on this issue.
In my past, I have clearly supported Barack Obama. I worked on his 08′ campaign. I even openly and early (when it counted because I had something to lose) warned President Obama that the people he was “paling around with” on technology were not inclusive of the best of us from that era. This type of risk, at best made the people that circle him act weird to me, at worst, privately try to destroy the progress we genuinely tried to create. I believe Obama when he says they didn’t tell him the website was busted– they are good at covering their tracks while not doing things, I’m only sorry that it may have just undermined the central argument of liberalism for a generation, that the government can DO things:
So My insurance was canceled. I was incredibly happy with my plan. I had over $200k in medical bills in February because of a ‘surfing accident'(I know its not like I had cancer) – it cost me $6000 out of pocket and I paid only $139 a month. This was a fucking AMAZING plan.
In the new plan that’s ‘better for me’ because I was getting ripped off somehow with the old one, my premiums more than doubled. Services I didnt think should be covered like acupuncture were(no offense to accupuncture, I’d just rather pay out of pocket, its cheaper!), other things were cut, like the size of my network of doctors. I was willing to deal with this when I got the notice two months ago. The Media which doesn’t really mediate anymore but follows SHINY OBJECTS didnt report on the cancellations back then. THEY are being PLAYED right now.
I have spoken to two groups of friends in this market of which I clearly have many. There are those of us who, like myself, are good soldiers and are willing to pay more to help other people get health care and remove the pre-existing condition even if it means we’re the ones shouldering the costs yet again. Then there are others who rightfully are pissed off or in denial about what’s going on with them. The website fix won’t help this, the information is actually out there for those who want to find it. When they find it, you can’t just tell them they’re wrong.
What bothers me is not this increase. It bothers me when they try to belittle this meager 5% of the population of several million people(we’re roughly larger than the proper populations of NYC, LOS ANGELES, CHICAGO & SF put together). We exist. We shoulder a lot of things and don’t complain about them, or threaten any politicians. We don’t start campaigns to purely help ourselves. We continue to take risks for ALL of society because that’s the way we do things.
It would be nice if they kept their word on letting us keep what we had. We were the good ones who HAD health insurance and paid our bills. But what would be better is they didn’t openly & continually shit on us like we don’t matter as they try to get out of their self-made political problems. It’s offensive.
Thanks.