You Voted for Romney/Ryan in 2012…Now Welcome to Your First Day of Voucher-care!
You voted for Romney/Ryan in 2012, because you had a vague sense that these two men had more in common with you than then President Obama. Nothing you could put your finger on. There was just something you liked about Romney’s face----
You were 55 when you voted for Romney. You lost your job in banking in 2008, when the economy went Boom under Bush, and it took you four years to find another, halfway decent job, one with benefits. In 2013, you were just starting to pull yourself out of a financial hole when Romney, the president of your choice was sworn in.
You noticed the change right away. The federal government under Romney stopped enforcing key provisions of the Affordable Care Act. Your 22 year old daughter was dropped from your health insurance----while pregnant with her first child. Then, in 2014, your employer stopped offering health insurance. You were given the option of paying out of your own pocket for continued coverage, but there was no way you could pay over a thousand dollars a month plus pay off your debts. Ironically, 2014 was the year you would have been able to purchase your own individual insurance at a reasonable rate, had the federal government not repealed Obama-care. Looking back, you wondered what you were thinking in 2012. Romney’s face did not look so agreeable when you saw him on television, now.
Since you couldn’t afford insurance, you went without. You were worried, but you reminded yourself that you had done it before, between 2008 and 2012 and nothing bad happened….
Three years without health care. In 2017, that pesky “indigestion” you were having for over a year turned out to be a heart attack. A major heart attack. By the time the doctors at the charity hospital released you to return to work, your job was gone. Your employer had hired someone younger. You consulted an attorney but were told that the Super Pac approved judges whom Romney had appointed overwhelming sided with employers in age discrimination lawsuits. So, you found a job at a convenience store and tried to stay afloat while you filed for Social Security disability---
Five years later, you still had not qualified. Social Security said that you were too highly educated. You could work from home, from bed if necessary. Too bad no employer was hiring a 60 something with a bad heart who had to work from bed. Too bad you could no longer retire early.
In 2022, you finally reached the age of 65. That was when you got the bad news. Your Social Security retirement savings---they were gone. Long gone, into some billionaire's Swiss bank account. Romney rewarded his hedge fund manager and banker donors by “privatizing” Social Security---and then, your retirement savings were invested in a bunch of worthless mortgages.
And your Medicare, the insurance that was supposed to take care of you in your retirement years? Gone. Long gone. Instead, the government issued you a voucher. If you could have cashed it in and used the money to pay for food or rent you would have. But the voucher could only be used to buy health insurance. So, you started asking around. And you discovered that because of your age and your heart condition, your voucher would only buy you a high deductible----$5000---policy that only covered your hospital expenses, no outpatient, medication or preventive service coverage at all. The hospital industry was happy. When you finally showed up in an emergency room dying, their bill would be covered. But your Voucher-care was not going to do anything to keep you healthy in the meantime.
Welcome to the first day of you Voucher-care!
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