{"id":16542,"date":"2009-07-20T06:10:52","date_gmt":"2009-07-20T11:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=16542"},"modified":"2009-07-20T17:56:13","modified_gmt":"2009-07-20T22:56:13","slug":"read-this-and-call-me-in-the-morning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/read-this-and-call-me-in-the-morning\/","title":{"rendered":"Read this and call me in the morning"},"content":{"rendered":"

By SAVAS ABADSIDIS<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

It was my birthday and I decided to see my shrink. I hadn\u0432\u0402\u2122t seen him in a while and I realized it was probably a good time to restart therapy and maybe address a few things that had been rattling around in my head.<\/p>\n

\"<\/a>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After arriving at his downtown Manhattan office, Carol the receptionist called me into one of the examination rooms to tell me I had an outstanding balance from my previous visit for $340.00. It had been denied by my insurance — she quietly — as not to embarrass me in front of the other patients informed me that the doctor was not going to be able to see me or write me my anti-depressant and benzodiazepines prescriptions unless the bill was taken care of…. I was in complete shock and felt a surge of anger for a moment.<\/p>\n

Firstly because I had no idea that I had a bill due, secondly wondering why my insurance had not paid the bill, and thirdly because I couldn’t believe that this doctor who I had been seeing on and off for over 10 years was denying to see me over one bill.<\/p>\n

She quickly apologized and explained that so many people had been coming in with canceled insurance and not making payments over the last year that they could not afford to see patients with outstanding bills anymore. After looking at the insurance information, I realized that it was outdated and that I had not provided my new information. I explained this to Carol, but didn\u0432\u0402\u2122t have the new card on me. She left the examination room to talk to the doctor and returned saying that he would agree to see me if I paid half the bill on the spot. Again I was in shock; there was something dirty about this explicit exchange of money in return for services that I had never experienced at the doctor before. I had already over the past few years been turned off at the idea of having to hand over your co-pay upfront before your visit. Certainly this exchange of money for services not yet rendered was a far cry from the Hippocratic oath. I happened to have $100 on me and she ran back to ask the doctor again and he finally agreed to see me. Needless to say, it was not a very productive session and if I hadn’t been out of my meds I probably would have walked out.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I bring this story up for a number of reasons. One is that since being laid off from my full time job a year ago, I pay almost $400\/month in COBRA coverage, which can be revoked by simply missing one payment; a situation which I have come close to many times. In the meantime I freelance and as the recession continues. My payments come later and later, my credit cards are often maxed out. I spend a day or two a week feeling like a billing department tracking down unpaid invoices and feel a generalized anxiety that is endemic to many of my generation.\u0412\u00a0 Having primarily worked in publishing and watching as the entire industry circles the drain, I have been mulling many different options: Law school? Going to graduate school? Getting certified to teach? Something “stable” as my mother insanely insists on a day-to-day basis.<\/p>\n

\"Picture<\/a>
Picture by Norman Rockwell.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The second reason is that this occurred while we are once again mired in a contentious healthcare debate in this country. Prior to my recent circumstances I had never really worried about this since I was lucky enough to have had a series of job that provided me with excellent healthcare as an adult. Anecdotally, there were instances that had me vaguely concerned as I watched one friend after the other over the years, either lose healthcare due to job loss or the increasing number of \u0432\u0402\u045afull-time\u0432\u0402\u045c freelance jobs that provided no healthcare or any other safety nets. This struck me as particularly problematic because amongst my friends at least half were Ivy league grads, and or had some level of graduate or professional studies, I imagined if it was this bad for us what was it like for the rest of the country. It was ironic to me that my sister who has no formal education and works as a correctional officer would often boast about what a waste going to college was and has better health care than some of my friends who graduated from Harvard and work for Viacom.<\/p>\n

What makes the debate going on particularly jarring, is the disturbing numbers involved\u0432\u0402\u201dthe current plan would tax the top 1% wage earners significantly more than the rest of the population\u0432\u0402\u201dsomething I don\u0432\u0402\u2122t have a problem with\u0432\u0402\u201dyet the recent recession has hit the top wage earners much harder than recent recessions according to the CBO (Congressional Budget Office). Normally something like a recession would lead to a healthy correction. This time around, the enduring nature of this recession has led me to question some of my fundamental beliefs. Conventional wisdom usually presumes that if the rich and near rich gets less, someone else will get more. Redistribution achieves a better social balance. Sometimes that happens. But sometimes when the rich get less, no one gets more. Regardless of how the \u0432\u0402\u045arich\u0432\u0402\u045c earned their money\u0432\u0402\u201dtrading bonds, performing surgery, starting new business ventures or providing legal services\u0432\u0402\u201dit\u0432\u0402\u2122s no longer so lucrative. The rich get poorer, but no one else gets richer. Society is worse off. This is not to say that I like \u0432\u0402\u045atrickle down\u0432\u0402\u045c economics, as a matter of fact I despise the very notion, but we are seeing some scary outcomes due to this enduring economic dip.<\/p>\n

Despite the comforting presence and voice of actor Dennis Haysbert in the new Allstate commercials (who incidentally played the nations first black president in Fox\u0432\u0402\u2122s 24), the insurance giant that has taken the lead in spinning the recession as an opportunity to talk about the wonders of living on less while shilling insurance we probably don\u0432\u0402\u2122t need, is the sheer level of unhinged, even violent irrationality that is being witnessed at the grassroots. Whether it\u0432\u0402\u2122s been a rise in anti-gay violence (witness the gay bar that was raided on Pride in Ft. Worth, Texas), the rash of suicides by kids as young as 10 who have been bullied for being gay, or the not-so-subtle race baiting and ignorant discussions about affirmative action witnessed during the Sotomayor hearings, there is an alarming trend underway.<\/p>\n

In postwar America, a panicky, violence-prone underbrush has always been revealed in moments of liberal ascendancy. Under the Kennedy administration there was the right-wing militia known as the Minutemen armed for what they believed was an imminent Russian takeover. Under Carter it was the Identity Christians who formed the Posse Comitatus and other paramilitary racist groups; Clinton\u0432\u0402\u2122s rise saw six anti-abortion murders, and the Oklahoma City bombings. Each time the conservative mainstream has been able to adroitly shake off the association of these embarrassing fringe groups while laying claim to some of the anger and channeling it in ways that were palatable to the masses. The Obama administration has seen a steeper curve into lunacy; not just in real crimes, but also by a somewhat nihilistic generation who have been convinced by the History Channel that world is ending in 2012 and an ascendancy of a Republican party that is no longer figure-headed by anyone who seems even vaguely reasonable (see Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, et al).<\/p>\n

As I write this I have just learned that Walter Cronkite has died at 92. Nothing could put the coda on what\u0432\u0402\u2122s been going on and our increasingly fractured social mores than the man who could once convincingly tell us, \u0432\u0402\u045aThat\u0432\u0402\u2122s the way it is.\u0432\u0402\u045c<\/p>\n

I firmly believe in the notion of progress. I also believe that we as individuals can set our own agendas and take individual responsibility as President Obama so eloquently elucidated in his stirring speech to the NAACP to commemorate their 100th Anniversary.\u0412\u00a0 Our agendas must be of hope and resistance against our complicity in the daily degeneration of societal mores that occurs everyday. I love Obama and the message he conveys, but I also am aware of how his often professorial stance could engender anger, when he calls for black folks to be more responsible, or any of us to do better, I can see how someone can mistake his call for us to listen to our better angels can some across as a smug judgmental arrogance about how we live our lives. I know all this and I resist the temptation to give in to my baser instincts.<\/p>\n

But then I also remember how angry I was in the doctor\u0432\u0402\u2122s office that day, and then I imagine the person who has far less than I do and how appealing the idea of giving into those base instincts must be; and I often wonder, how do we counter that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By SAVAS ABADSIDIS It was my birthday and I decided to see my shrink. I hadn\u0432\u0402\u2122t seen him in a while and I realized it was probably a good time to restart therapy and maybe address a few things that had been rattling around in my head. After arriving at his downtown Manhattan office, Carol … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16542"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16542\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}