Shriek of Rage in A Sharp
Warning: Vitriolic Childfree-Related Rant. Readers are advised to assume that I bear parents no ill will. It's the fucking government, this time.
Oh, my god.
So pissed off. Soooooo incredibly pissed off now.
Being without insurance, my first thought is to see if I can pick up some sort of stopgap state-funded coverage just in case I slice my fingers off with a rotary saw while opening the skulls of those who have defied me.
And what do I find? Golly. I might be eligible for some assistance from Medicare or Medicaid . . .
if
I had a baby.
That's right. The only health care given to people my tender age and in my tender income bracket is given to pregnant women and to parents, because the babies are our future.
If I recall the documents right (I was looking at them through a crimson haze at one point) a pregnant woman has to bring in less than 185% of the federal poverty level to qualify. A housewife-type person like myself? Gosh. I can only get away with 36%. A working person gets 45%. The income level defined as "poverty" for a two-person family is anything below (hold your breath) $12,490 per annum. If I make more than 36% of that, golly gee whiz, I can clearly afford to pay out the ass for shitty insurance. Oh! Wait! This form actually says "Non-Working PARENT." I guess I'm shit out of luck, even if I AM poor.
So the insurance companies regard me as a cash cow because I am smart enough to take care of myself, and because I don't have resource-sucking dependents to funnel away all my benefits.
The state regards me as a non-being unless and until I rent out my uterus to some loathesome squatter, and sees no reason to provide me with even minimal assistance maintaining my excellent health, while it turns right around and helps out those people who were less resourceful, careful, and conscientous than I by caring for children whose parents often knew they didn't have the resources to pay for a child.
All I can say is thank goodness I'm not an unmarried man, or I might cease to exist as anything other than a potential prison inmate.
And all I can do is opt out of the whole charade and pray, pray, that I don't develop a bad case of brain worms or something.
Oh, seriously, I am so fucking livid. I mean, I knew it was a social faux pas to fuck and forget to have babies, but I hadn't realized that the defining criteria for mattering was whether or not I've had a child. I had no idea that my value as a human being in the eyes of the state depended on my ability to foist my genetic mistakes on a new generation of unwitting little victims. I guess I've been wrong all these years I thought I was doing the smart, responsible thing by not breeding and putting a strain on my system -- or the state's. I could have been sponging off the government tit this whole time, and using my children as a tax shelter! Stupid me!
Oh, wait. I can't. I'm just as biologically ineligible for their pity as a single man. Guess I'm fucked!
Don't get me wrong. I'm very glad programs like this exist. They help out women and kids who really need it, and they help out old folks, too. We need to take care of everyone, because healthy people don't make other people sick. Healthy people also don't die and smell up the place. So I'm all in favor of healthy people.
And I know that the government breaks given to parents are much-needed and very helpful to a group of hardworking, diligent people who often need that help a lot. I also know that in many cases they are woefully insufficient. I'm aware, too, that many parents can't afford insurance, either. We're all fucked.
But that doesn't change the fact that my husband's taxes go for schooling, for health care, for social programs, just as much as any parent's, and we get less out of it compared to what he puts in. My husband is the one who covers shifts when someone has to go to a ball game or recital, but he doesn't get time off to do things that he wants to do. I am the one who has been busting my ass to make sure I don't need medical care, baby-related or not, and I'm the one who has to forego it, because the only way his job or insurance or the government cares about me is if I have a kid.
I'm sick of feeling marginalized just because I'm not "contributing" more human capital to this cesspool. As though adult human beings are a commodity, and children nothing more than a future investment.
I don't mind these programs. I'm glad they're there.
But where's the program for people like me?
I wouldn't be bitching at all, but for the cost of health care in this fucking country. If it were reasonable, I'd have no worries. But it's not. A goddamn gyno exam runs me seventy bucks, and that's not counting another hundred in lab fees. And that's really, really cheap. They charged my insurance $53 for an antacid at the hospital. I was lucky to wake up with both my retinas.
I'd get different insurance, but guess what? It's fucking expensive! A thousand bucks a month to cover me, if it's not through Sargon's employer. Well. Color me shocked. It's either take the shitty insurance we're offered, or have nothing.
Cocksuckers.
The average person needs to be able to afford either insurance, or health care. Not neither, for Christ's sake.
Oh, my god.
So pissed off. Soooooo incredibly pissed off now.
Being without insurance, my first thought is to see if I can pick up some sort of stopgap state-funded coverage just in case I slice my fingers off with a rotary saw while opening the skulls of those who have defied me.
And what do I find? Golly. I might be eligible for some assistance from Medicare or Medicaid . . .
if
I had a baby.
That's right. The only health care given to people my tender age and in my tender income bracket is given to pregnant women and to parents, because the babies are our future.
If I recall the documents right (I was looking at them through a crimson haze at one point) a pregnant woman has to bring in less than 185% of the federal poverty level to qualify. A housewife-type person like myself? Gosh. I can only get away with 36%. A working person gets 45%. The income level defined as "poverty" for a two-person family is anything below (hold your breath) $12,490 per annum. If I make more than 36% of that, golly gee whiz, I can clearly afford to pay out the ass for shitty insurance. Oh! Wait! This form actually says "Non-Working PARENT." I guess I'm shit out of luck, even if I AM poor.
So the insurance companies regard me as a cash cow because I am smart enough to take care of myself, and because I don't have resource-sucking dependents to funnel away all my benefits.
The state regards me as a non-being unless and until I rent out my uterus to some loathesome squatter, and sees no reason to provide me with even minimal assistance maintaining my excellent health, while it turns right around and helps out those people who were less resourceful, careful, and conscientous than I by caring for children whose parents often knew they didn't have the resources to pay for a child.
All I can say is thank goodness I'm not an unmarried man, or I might cease to exist as anything other than a potential prison inmate.
And all I can do is opt out of the whole charade and pray, pray, that I don't develop a bad case of brain worms or something.
Oh, seriously, I am so fucking livid. I mean, I knew it was a social faux pas to fuck and forget to have babies, but I hadn't realized that the defining criteria for mattering was whether or not I've had a child. I had no idea that my value as a human being in the eyes of the state depended on my ability to foist my genetic mistakes on a new generation of unwitting little victims. I guess I've been wrong all these years I thought I was doing the smart, responsible thing by not breeding and putting a strain on my system -- or the state's. I could have been sponging off the government tit this whole time, and using my children as a tax shelter! Stupid me!
Oh, wait. I can't. I'm just as biologically ineligible for their pity as a single man. Guess I'm fucked!
Don't get me wrong. I'm very glad programs like this exist. They help out women and kids who really need it, and they help out old folks, too. We need to take care of everyone, because healthy people don't make other people sick. Healthy people also don't die and smell up the place. So I'm all in favor of healthy people.
And I know that the government breaks given to parents are much-needed and very helpful to a group of hardworking, diligent people who often need that help a lot. I also know that in many cases they are woefully insufficient. I'm aware, too, that many parents can't afford insurance, either. We're all fucked.
But that doesn't change the fact that my husband's taxes go for schooling, for health care, for social programs, just as much as any parent's, and we get less out of it compared to what he puts in. My husband is the one who covers shifts when someone has to go to a ball game or recital, but he doesn't get time off to do things that he wants to do. I am the one who has been busting my ass to make sure I don't need medical care, baby-related or not, and I'm the one who has to forego it, because the only way his job or insurance or the government cares about me is if I have a kid.
I'm sick of feeling marginalized just because I'm not "contributing" more human capital to this cesspool. As though adult human beings are a commodity, and children nothing more than a future investment.
I don't mind these programs. I'm glad they're there.
But where's the program for people like me?
I wouldn't be bitching at all, but for the cost of health care in this fucking country. If it were reasonable, I'd have no worries. But it's not. A goddamn gyno exam runs me seventy bucks, and that's not counting another hundred in lab fees. And that's really, really cheap. They charged my insurance $53 for an antacid at the hospital. I was lucky to wake up with both my retinas.
I'd get different insurance, but guess what? It's fucking expensive! A thousand bucks a month to cover me, if it's not through Sargon's employer. Well. Color me shocked. It's either take the shitty insurance we're offered, or have nothing.
Cocksuckers.
The average person needs to be able to afford either insurance, or health care. Not neither, for Christ's sake.