One thing that’s been tough for me to let go of that I continue to roll around in my head is this idea that we all know we live in a society, right? We are all expected to make our contribution to society in almost every legal manner we see fit through whatever work or consumerism we practice to allow money and resources to change hands. That social contract price to me has also meant not burdening current or future society in my efforts to live my life. This is precisely why I have always ensured I had the best insurance possible, because you know there’s a cost you owe knowing what you bring to the table, and in the US it has been a game of you get what you can afford or you get Medicaid, but someone like me cannot willingly not have insurance, because even arguing all those things, you cannot get preventative care in the US without it. Even still, I would never want to be an unwitting murderer of anyone, so I was beyond thrilled to get vaccinated and I got boosted as soon as I could-I actually appreciate that about our existence–I have a continuous awareness of how my behavior impacts other people so I act in the world accordingly. It’s why I won’t ever text and drive, I try to exist in the world with awareness. But a vaccine to me given all the information found and sheer number of people vaccinated has proven to be a pretty amazing invention–clearly all training we can get to fight foreign invaders in our bodies in a world that is warming with a possibility for worst stuff in the air later could use a few lessons on fighting a lung virus that creates worse later.
Now, lots of people in our community and society have just now been introduced to the get health insurance to get preventative care life or get Medicaid, but many of those people sit in states that refused to expand Medicaid-some big ones you might recognize as being in the top of most infected 10-FL, TX, GA, NC-which has infected at some point a logged 27% of the population. Hell, Tennessee has 28% infected and they didn’t expand it either, sitting in 12th place for most infections with a population under 7 million and just under 2 million reported positive. Now clearly by 2010 it’s going to be clear how many were truly infected and I guarantee you’ll see stories, did the vast undercount of COVID positives effect our responses later to it-should we have had more resources for the problems we caused. New figures suggest at least half the population got COVID without being fully boosted. I swear this is the obvious conclusion from a rational person since the at home test is not being self-reported nor is it a requirement. But still consider there will need to be a federal solution to it, because this will be very tough for people to endure currently and in the future. The Fed solution will likely require people to self identify-that is unless they give us umbrella coverage. Sure there’s been some assistance in some of the bills, but a lot of people are going to be asked to make payment plans they cannot afford for circumstances that might get repeated, and it’s possible you might end up in multiple payment plans then sued into wage garnishment. This is just one possible outcome, and certainly no guarantee, but do understand ANY bankruptcy will take assets you have. And they’ll make you go through it because those bills accrued during a time we had no Fed solution for healthcare or insurance-something I definitely see changing by the end of this decade.
Beyond that, consider the financial impact a lot of these regional hospitals will have endured not having people pay off their medical bills and going bankrupt just as we are needing them for further service. Then consider all the people who are sitting in beds of people who had procedures scheduled, some of who absolutely have had to die while people sit in beds who got COVID. Certainly at this point we can all agree it is a choice to ignore the decision to cooperate in society-and really perhaps we should have had entirely different response to start-built up clinics only for COVID unvaccinated people manned by the unvaccinated nurses. Those clinics would have to take every person who had COVID, insured or not, and the regular hospitals could have donated a wing if they wanted to, but would be largely serving people who had insurance–does that even sound right to anyone? No, we probably all should have had access to healthcare instead of some people having to find out their health conditions on the way out. But the point is there are people who are sitting in beds that were reserved for community use that refuse to do what’s right for the community, yet are clearly fine using community resources-is that REALLY the best use of society’s resources? Probably not, but we have equal access to suffering here.
Here are some articles to ponder from the past few days. Today I made myself sleep past 5 am without grabbing the phone so I have nothing for today.
2/7/2022
You are 97x more likely to die of COVID if you are unvaccinated Clearly that needs no summation but the only people ignoring that I would guess would be especially bad at gambling.
Broken heart syndrome caused by COVID cases surge especially among women Fast heartbeats and damage generally caused by emotional heartbreak seen in increased numbers among those who had COVID. I have messed myself up a bit as well and created some circumstances which stressed me out into heart problems as well so this is a thing-you just get to skip past the actual heartbreak and get the damage anyways. Yikes.
VA Gov relaxes mask mandates against the majority’s wishes
Luckily the local school districts won those cases as pandering to the minority isn’t a great way to sow harmony-I don’t get this as his own kids go to a school with a mask mandate, and it would seem leading by example isn’t really something he’s fully committed to unless it involves being a jerk in a grocery store.