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A meandering rant by Maynard

Like Tammy, I’ve got personal health insurance through Anthem. I pay the premium out of my own pocket. My policy is there to protect me from disaster. I’ve never had a disaster (partly by grace of God and partly because I try to stay out of trouble), so I’ve never met my deductible. All of my routine medical stuff is, like my premium, paid for out of my own pocket. I guess that makes me a good citizen and/or a good risk.

So here’s the thanks I, and people like me, get. On October 1, my premium jumps by 19%. Anthem sent me a nice letter explaining why this is necessary. They cite several reasons; here are two of them (I’m quoting from the letter):

• Cost-shifting from people who are uninsured and those receiving Medicare and Medicaid to the private sector.
• Compliance with government regulations, including the recently enacted health care reform legislation

I remember Obama trumpeting how the “reform” would make health care more affordable. For example, here is the blurb at BarackObama.com. You will recall that this was typical of what you were hearing from Obama and other proponents of the bill:

After decades of struggle and a year of debate, health reform is now law in America.

What does it mean for you? It means an end to the worst insurance company abuses, new rules that treat everyone fairly, and more choices and affordable health insurance for millions of Americans.

If you listened to Tammy’s Saturday show, you heard her play an audio clip from Obama’s latest news conference. Here is the full transcript. Tammy noted Obama’s new version of history:

“…as a consequence of us getting 30 million additional people health care, at the margins that’s going to increase our costs, we knew that. We didn’t think that we were going to cover 30 million people for free…”

So, once again, what Obama said yesterday is the opposite of what he says today, and his words have no connection to his deeds. This is the politics of lunacy, where Washington does what it wants and says what it wants, and to hell with the people and the Constitution.

I didn’t want to dwell on Obama in this post, except to note that we’re being trained to regard a modern politician as someone who is deceitful and dishonest. The political class wants us to think of them in those terms, so we’ll stop bothering them. Just as I can’t reasonably expect my cat to open a can of cat food, I also shouldn’t expect my representatives to be in any way responsive.

I was just expressing my thoughts to Pat, which I’ll repeat here…

I’ve given up writing serious letters to my representatives. They’ve clearly adopted the attitude that it’s their job to desecrate the Constitution and beat the people into submission, and it’s a complete waste of time to address them as if they were reasonable people.

I’m thinking that it might possibly be productive to start sending crank letters, as long as they don’t fall into the category that the FBI comes after you. These people know the world is full of cranks. Getting crank letters might highlight the point that they have made themselves into a lightning rod, and will be getting more and more attention from cranks. Polite people are predictable, and you can just tell them to take a hike, and they go away. But you never know about cranks. Maybe you shouldn’t treat a crank like dirt.

Writing crank letters is one of many services that Maynard offers. But I think Pat was unconvinced by my reasoning.

Anyway, the foregoing rant is merely expression of my ongoing disgust and frustration at our hostile and dysfunctional government. But here is a weird thing. New Jersey’s Gov. Christie actually sounds like a human being, and he seems to address the needs of the people. Watch this clip and compare it to just about every political discussion you’ve heard in recent memory.

Why can’t more politicians sound like this? For a few shining moments, I thought our Gov. Schwarzenegger would do likewise for California, but he quickly gave up. Is it so hard to do? Why do the outspoken kooks and activists have so much power, and the reasonable man on Main Street gets nothing but abuse? Am I asking too much?

(By the way, New Jersey annual spending on education works out to $11,436 per pupil, which is third highest in the nation, being edged out by New York and far outspent by the District of Columbia. See chart.)

Here’s hoping for the dawn of a better day come November. Throw the bums out! That in itself isn’t enough to save us. But it’s a start.