Health Insurance

I was talking to someone at work the other day, someone that didn't know how close I was creeping up to age 50. He suggested that what we really need is for the baby boomers to retire and open up a number of jobs and advancement for the next generation. This would provide openings for the newly graduated. I don't disagree.

What is keeping the older crowd in place is two things. First, their retirement accounts have yet to rebound and the fear has pushed a lot into safer places than the stock market so the growth is even slower. The second problem is that it is virtually impossible to get health affordable health insurance from the age  of 50 to 65. The health care package is in jeopardy. So what can the older crowd do except keep on working.

This is an issue that has to be addressed. We need to find a way for the 50-70 year old group to work without clogging up the works for the younger crowd. This is a group that is still vibrant, ready and willing to stay in the workforce and can provide value. A group that needs to keep building up their retirement funds. But also a group that is ready to look at more time off, a need for a slightly lower level of stress, a need for more flexibility as they are often caring for aging parents as well as grown children. We need a new paradigm. My mother, like many of the WWII generation, got early retirement in her fifties that came with a guaranteed income and health insurance that lasted until SS kicked in. Those days are over.

Globalization

Someone forwarded me an e-mail today suggesting that when I call a help desk, if I get a non-US based person helping me, I should politely ask for an American. But there is a catch. Do we like our inexpensive gadgets? Do we really want to pay more? It is even possible that once this foreign help desk person raises their standard of living that they will buy some of the more advanced gadgets that are produced here.

But there is one thing that I think we should pay more for and as much as possible, consume from local sources, Food! So I brought up Barbara Kingsolver earlier. While we may not all want to actually produce our own food, which is a lot of work, I do see value in her experiment as a writer. It was to answer the question "Can I eat only locally grown foods for a year?" It would be interesting to see a return to the real family farm, the kind that grows vegetables and produces animals and therefore is sustainable. We should be willing to pay more for food, not computers. And if we were, and the number of local farmers increased exponentially, we could provide jobs as well as become more healthy.

Is this advancement or is it going back to the past? This is one I struggle with?

Reflections on the tragedy in Arizona

I have been worried since President Obama took office that we would see a resurgence of the vigilante anger we saw during the Clinton administration. It was the same fuel that brought us the Oklahoma City bombing and now this. Oklahoma City did not fundamentally change the ugly discourse in this country but I do wonder if this time, we will see real change.

Many optimistic predictions for a new progressive cultural shift, the very reason I hopefully started this blog, tell us that things will be at their worst right before shift takes hold. I hope that this might be it.  I will never understand why health care reform causes such fear. Clearly the paradigm of work has changed so why should one of the key ties to the workplace, i.e. benefits packages such as this not also need a re-examination. Is the plan that was passed last year the final solution to a very difficult issue? No, but it was a first attempt at a new paradigm and one that I believe would benefit the average American.

And yet somehow, there is all this anger. I see Sarah Palin and her target map, and here we are today. Another crazy, unspeakable act has led to such loss. Perhaps the ultimate irony is that the completely innocent little 9 year old girl that lost her chance to live was born into this world on Sept. 11, 2001, the day the same kind of irrational anger and fear took away so much life.

Anger Management

When I first started hearing about the tea party, my first thought was that an anger management program could help. As you can see from the links below, I was not alone in that idea.

Anger Management provided

We all have experienced times where something sets us off and we lash out in the wrong direction. While I try to avoid day to day politics on this blog, I do think this topic should be considered when we look at the barriers to advancement. Why are people so resistant to new ideas such as a single payer health care system or changing the tax structure?

I think it is because change often impacts the folks who once thought they had it made and removes all their old safe assumptions. So if I started out 25 years ago thinking that the paradigm of getting a certain kind of good job, living with some level of mortgage, car payment and credit card debt was the ideal way and now that has all changed, I am angry at where I stand today. Perhaps I even thought I could pick a career and work in that field until retirement. When some of your assumptions don’t pan out, rather than start with a whole new slate, most people opt to at least hang on to what they know of the past. That is why people who most need the safety net of universal health care are at the same time adamantly opposed. I know one thing, if there is any hope that we can solve our issues in a new economy, it is critical that people can change jobs or start their own business without jeopardizing their access to health care.

my first thoug