Opulence

12/27 -

I live in Pennsylvania, but am down in the D.C. metro area with my brother, his wife and family for Christmas.  It is truly joyful to be here, especially their granddaughters who are eight and three.  They are unbelievably well behaved girls.  Not the stereotypical loud and crazy kids running around.  They are able to occupy themselves for hours at a time with thoughtful activities.

In the powder room, there is a basket of magazines, a fairly typical feature in many homes.  When looking through these publications while visiting the 'facility', I came across the 'Luxury Issue' of The Washington Post Magazine.  Please excuse me for being indelicate, but it was a good thing I was in the bathroom, because I wanted to puke.  The level of opulence, sheer material wealth, and apparent pride in these trappings was, to me, foul and disgusting.  Photos of women in clothing that is obviously extremely costly and bedecked with the latest jewelry.  At least fifty percent of the magazines pages are ads for 'everything' from "the perfect wedding" to "The Center for Cosmetic Surgery" to cognac, jewelry, clothes, minks, Rolls Royces, McLarens, Lamborghinis and so on.  The photos are of people that are obviously privileged beyond what the vast majority of people on this planet will ever even catch a whiff of.

Although everything about this 'Luxury Issue' nauseated me, I came to understand that it was what this issue represents that offended me, not individuals with vast sums of money.  For the most part, I do not begrudge those that are wealthy, their wealth. For the most part.  What sticks in my 'crawl' is the apparent lack of compassion that I see represented and reflected.  People at grand events, where hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent to stage the event, and outside of the the venue hundreds, maybe even thousands of people homeless on the streets, struggling to survive day to day.  I've no doubt that the individuals that I see pictured donate large sums of money to individual charities, and I am thankful.

What I am writing about is on a much larger scale than wealthy people contributing to charitable organizations.  I'm speaking to our society, where homeless people do not have a decent place to live.  I'm speaking to millions that cannot afford health care.  especially the health insurance issue.  What do health insurance companies mean when they say they are loosing money by being required to insure those that cannot afford to be insured?  These companies are still collecting money from these very same people through the 'market places' that have been set up by The Affordable Health Care Act (AHCA), just not what they charge those that can afford to pay the 'normal' fee.  Are these companies still not showing a profit?  Of course they are.  Are they not meeting the profit projections they want to put in their ledgers?  Maybe not.  'Tough shit'.

While working on this post, I was sitting at the dining room table with my niece, who was, as chance would have it, applying for health insurance through the 'market place'.  Last year she paid $150 per month, now she will need to pay $300 per month.  Is this a failing of the AHCA?  If so, it is only because in order to get uninsured people insured, to get any kind of legislation passed, the insurance industry lobbied their way into maintaining control over the system.  It is not the "government" that raised the monthly fee for those least able to pay, it is the insurance industry.

In an earlier posting titled Health Care in the U.S. and the 'S' word on 11/22, I addressed the health care issue and a possible alternative solution.  I urge all of you to read this post, even if you have already read it.  I believe the case made in the earlier post will make more sense in light of what is written above.