I have never been a big fan of "the group". I took my sons to Legoland today and lamented that other people had decided to do the same for their kids. "Why are so many people here today? I thought all the tourists had gone home by now." After all, why would anyone else what to get their pent up kids out of the house on a beautiful, 70 degree San Diego Saturday and go do something fun? But the lines on every ride and the moving sea of human ants detracted from my amusement. My boys were impervious to the mayhem and moved with the masses. But it spurred me to think about what it is that I don't like about the group mentality.
Don't get me wrong, I am not moving to a cave on the back of some unexplored mountain. I enjoy the relative security we all enjoy by being part of this larger human body. We have created a collective system that generally works. We have a clock, calendar and currency we can all agree on. Love and health, hey who doesn't want those? There are fundamental bricks in each of our constitutions that are communal. But what happens when one's sense of self is overridden by the group. Be it religious, political, societal or familial, does the group actually know what is best for any one person?
In the case of manual labors of the industrial age in the second half of the 19th century, being part of a group was revolutionary in that collective bargaining protected the poor, disenfranchised men who were willing to fill their lungs with soot digging coal to fuel the factories sending this country into an unprecedented state of growth. One for all and all for one. You piss us off and we will drop our shovels. You don't pay us fairly, your factory won't have fuel. And so was formed the idea that a group is safer than going it alone in labor. For those men, it was undoubtedly a life-saver.
Now 150 years after the industrial revolution, unions are alive and well. In general, teachers, nurses, police officers and other professionals opt to have an organized union work for the benefit of the whole to negotiate a collective agreement, such as all union members receive a 2% raise in pay in a given year. This is done on the union members' behalf and in exchange for the right to pursue one's own individual pay raise. Because the people in these professions are so invaluable to our society, our children and our individual well-being, I am inclined to say whatever works best to keep them happy and taken care of is in all of our best interest. But what about the rest of us? Who is going to bat for me?
Through circumstances both within and out of my control, I am a small business owner. I have one full-time employee. I have a husband (also a small business owner), 2 small children and a mortgage. I give approximately $.30 of every dollar I make to the state or federal government. By worldly standards, my life is luxurious. I have clean, plentiful water. I have clothing to give away. I have food that goes bad before I get to it. My children have their own bedrooms and more toys or books than they care to play with. My problems are small when compared to a mother who is faced with famine, homelessness or poverty.
So this brings me to the groups we are forced to be a part of on November 6, 2012. I did not watch the debates, neither presidential nor vice-presidential. Why? I am sad that I have to pick one of these groups to represent me. If you live in Amarillo, Texas and you are a bleeding heart Democrat, you are probably not wearing that sign on your back. If you live in San Francisco, California and you are a die-hard Republican, you are probably muttering quite a few things under your breath, but not out loud. Our individual affiliation with the group we choose defines us, whether we like it or not. And, as I look at the choices on the menu of this upcoming election, I find myself asking "Does the chef have any other options?". Make no mistake, both of these candidates are privileged and wealthier and than most of us will ever be. Neither of them are an average Joe. Private schools, Ivy League, advanced degrees and millions of dollars. In all honesty, why would any of us want anything different from the leader of our country, regardless of which ever group we are a part of? If this was a football team, we would want a coach who knew how to score, how to motivate, how to mobilize. We would look at his track record, his wins vs. losses. But somehow, when we are looking at the potential leader of the United States of America we expect to see someone who has both worked retail and also successfully negotiated an international hostage stand-off.
I received my family's health insurance renewal paperwork today. To insure my family of 4 with a modest High Deductible Health Plan ($2,500 deductible with no benefits prior to the deductible being met), our rates are going from $720/month to $1,090/month as of January 1, 2013. There is no change in coverage. The only change is that the federal government is now requiring private insurance companies to insure people who previously would not have qualified for privatized coverage. These companies are also being required to remove the cap on Maximum Lifetime Benefits historically offered through their contracts (usually in the ballpark of $6 million per contract). Additionally, the federal government is requiring that companies allow subscribers' adult children to stay on their plans as dependants until age 26. Remember that word dependant.
A good feature of the ACA is the 80/20 rule that mandates health insurance companies must use $4 out of every $5 for actual health care costs, with the remaining 20% going to administrative and advertising costs. Actuarially speaking, if $872 of my $1,090/month will be going to projected expenses for statistically similar cases in my rate category, yet I am this year paying $720 TOTAL for the same set of statistics during this current policy term, it shows you just how much this governmental decision is costing just one American family. And in this one situation, I am clear on what group I do not want to be a part of.
We are Americans. We are resilient and hard working and durable. Kick us and we will get up and stare you in the eye. I wish I had another choice on the menu that didn't apologize for success, that was gracious in its appreciation for what we have and that was invigorating in its momentum to take us to new heights. But that dish is nowhere to be found. So I look the clubs I have in front of me and ask, do I want to think for myself or hope that someone else has a better idea? We do not need to be dependant upon a government to think for us. There are more than 300,000,000 million of us! How could 1, 2 or 100 groups define us? But these are our only choices. I hope we all fit in with the group that makes us feel the strongest, not just the safest.
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