Healthcare fubar

Couldn't've said it better myself (via whswhs):

A New York Times story yesterday, "House Reaches Agreement on Cutting Cost of Health Bill," says the following, among other things:

People with low or moderate incomes could still get federal subsidies to help them buy insurance, but they might have to spend slightly more of their own income — a maximum of 12 percent, rather than 11 percent.

Twelve percent?

A few years ago, when I last had health insurance, I was paying just about 12% of my gross income for it. It was a real hardship for me to do that. I worried about paying the rent; I could afford few luxuries; in fact, having only catastrophic coverage, I couldn't get anything to help with regular medical and dental visits, and shortly after dropping my insurance I realized that I hadn't visited my doctor or dentist in two years, because I was chronically too broke to pay for office visits. And I wasn't all that hard up; I make several times minimum wage, I don't have dependents, and I don't have a lot of common expenses, starting with not owning a car. How on earth is a genuinely poor family with children supposed to afford this?

Let's do the math. Minimum wage is now $7.25. A couple earning minimum wage, both working full time, will have gross income of $29,000. Twelve percent of that is $3480, or $290 a month. That's a big dent in household income. If, like me, you make more than minimum wage, imagine having an extra $290 a month deducted from your pay, and think about what you'd have to give up to compensate.

The original supposition of the left was that everyone would get free, tax-supported medical care. But that has no chance of passing through Congress. Instead, what we look likely to get is a provision under which everyone is forced to buy health insurance, to the benefit of insurance companies with lobbyists in Washington. There's an undercurrent of suggestion that people who don't get health insurance are "not paying their share," that they're self-indulgent or foolish and therefore, perhaps, deserve to be forced to act responsibly, or punished for not doing so with substantial fines. But I tried to have insurance. I'm in my sixtieth year, and being uninsured is no joke for me. And I simply found it ruinously expensive, even in a budget without a lot of the usual expenses.

You know, I really wish Congress would be willing to believe that adults decide not to spend money on something, it's because they really have decided that they can't afford it, no matter how necessary it is. Because if they pass this, they're going to hurt a lot of people.

No comments here, go to the original.

A few reviews

I've been playing a lot of games, watching old TV, and reading books of late. I've been meaning to write some reviews, but I've been burned out of late. Here are a few of the more recent ones.

God of War, SCE Santa Monica, 2005. God of War II, SCE Santa Monica, 2007. If you haven't heard of this series, then you haven't lived. Both games are a fantastic fusion of puzzle jumping and action adventure, where many of the puzzles require both wits and dexterity. As a series, God of War somewhat resembles the Halo franchise. The first game blows away all the competition with an innovatively simple system, and a compelling plot threaded with deep metanarrative seldom seen outside of the best RPGs. The second game adds a lot of new intricacies to the system, and they're all good improvements once you get used to the new style; but, while the plot seems to make sense at first, it doesn't really hold together very well and the miniquests seem more like excuses for a level than really being part of the plot. Both games are worthy of their best-of-the-best reviews. But beware, if you have hand problems then you should avoid them, especially the second one; and if you don't, you will.

Dirge of Cerberus: FF VII, Square Enix, 2006. A three-quarter view FPS/RPG following Vincent Valentine after the events of FF7 and Crisis Core. Rather than being a typical FPS, the play style is more similar to other action/RPG hybrids. In particular, common tactics like strafing don't work, whereas standing like a badass before blowing someone away does. If you're looking for a traditional FPS, this game isn't it (whence everyone else's mixed reviews). The game really is all about watching Vincent be pretty, though the plot makes as much sense as anything else in the FF7 line. Lots of fan service with the other characters showing up, though the new characters seem better developed. The ending is very well done, albeit with Lord of the Ring style: final battle, conclusion, final final battle, ending, final level, epilogue, epiepilogue, afterward,... I had fun with it, all in all a good game.

A Deepness in the Sky, Vernor Vinge, 1999. The summary on the back of the book sums it up quite well without giving too much away, so I won't repeat it. Hard scifi set in the far future, Vinge presents a rarity: a future that is both intricately developed and entirely believable. Vinge's scifi is not the classic "technological what if", but is rather a deeply human story (which happens to touch on the very human ways in which technology shapes our lives). I'd been meaning to read some Vinge for quite a while and finally got the chance when I forgot to bring a book with me on my last trip to DC. This is, apparently, a prequel to another of his books but it was the only one available at the time. Now I must hunt down A Fire Upon the Deep, and add a shrine for Vinge in my small pantheon. If anyone has heard me go on about C.S. Friedman or George R.R. Martin, then you'll know how how great a writer is Vinge, and how small the pantheon he shares.