Watching one C-SPAN channel or another all day has brought me to the limits of my sanity and physical well being. Watching Barbara Boxer nearly work herself into tears over the poor, abused, misled hourly workers of the evil McDonald's Corporation and its MiniMed health insurance options...I am about to vomit!
Maybe I am old, but I don't ever remember thinking that my high school education and part time hourly employment should offer me the option of 'golden hoop' health care. At some point you could buy a limited benefit policy at a rate you could not really afford to have taken out of your check every two weeks, but I never did this. And we all knew it was crap insurance. In order to get better options for insurance, you had to work full time, get into management, and so on. You invest your effort into the company and they increase what they are willing to give you as benefits. Logic, right?
When did things suddenly change? why on god's green earth would any company provide 75-80% subsidy on a part-time worker's premiums for a comprehensive policy? Particularly with the age group of most of the workers and the ridiculous turnover rate in food service, retail, and other low education industries? Even if McD's were to subsidize 80% of a full benefit comprehensive policy, that hourly part time worker still probably could not afford the damned premium! But, that's the evil corporation's fault too, isn't it? A person that saw fit to do nothing more with themselves than get enough education to work in food service for a living is definitely worth the same as my husband who busted his ass getting an Engineering degree so that he could make more than the goddamned food service worker!? I don't think so.
I delivered pizza for the best part of my working life and only within the last 7 years started making any progress towards better. What did it take? School. Not a lot for what I do, but school nonetheless. I make double on the hour than what I would if I'd not pursued further education. I still work part time, but do have the availability of full time and benefits if I choose. They won't be great, but that is part of the price that one pays for making bad decisions, procrastinating, and relying too heavily on others for the first part of my adult life. One bad decision has led to another and another, and they compound. It takes twice as much work to get out of the hole. Ultimately, the responsibility for my status in life is my own.
I will certainly admit that sometimes things just go wrong. Providers die, people get sick or injured through no fault of their own...There has to be some sort of remedy against happenstance. I would want help if I needed it to stay alive or feed my children. I don't want people to starve or die because they decided to be a housewife and the provider gets cancer. What I can't abide is this notion that people who are un- or undereducated and can't DO anything other than sling fries because they decided to have two babies and drop out of high school are somehow entitled to the same pay and benefits as another person who graduated, worked her way through college, and eventually got to a position that offered pay and benefits reserved for those who have earned them.
There are differences in people and there are differences in those persons' worth in a corporate and economic sense. Plain, simple, painful fact. I am economically not as viable as my husband. Fact. I am more economically viable than a highschool graduate. Fact. A person with a 10th grade education, two kids by two different men by the age of 17, a history of drug use, including during pregnancy, legal problems, and no work history??? You guessed it...Worthless! And whose problem is this? Not yours. Not mine. The responsibility lies at the feet of the parents and the girl herself. But Barb Boxer is going to wail up because this useless girl can't get access to the same pay and health care that my husband can!
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