Selfishness

The Lovely Harvey has a friend, Pam. She is the embodiment of the flaming liberal.

She thinks I am selfish because I really think that a person should fund their own life.

The health care thing really gets her worked up.

She doesn't see that medicine will have to be paid for by someone, all she sees it that she doesn't have to pay directly. She completely misses that what she wants will be paid for, and it will have to be paid for through taxes.

I am selfish because I think that I am responsible for my own care, and thus feel I should pay for the services I use. I am selfish because I think that everyone else should too.

Thus ends the theory portion of todays discussion.

Remember, I am the selfish one.

Pam's grandmother, Sharon, got cancer a few years ago. Sharon was reasonably wealthy. Half million dollar house, stocks, bonds, retired at 45, all heavily tax sheltered. Sharon could have easily afforded health insurance. She chose to go without it. Rather than sell assets to pay for her treatment, she transferred them into Pam's name and went on Medicaid/care. Because she was unemployed and owned nothing, all her nearly million dollar medical bills were covered by the government. As soon as she went into remission, Pam transferred the assets back into Sharon's name.

I am selfish because I think that you should have to pay your own way, Sharon could have afforded to, chose poorly, and because I am forced to be generous via taxation, she pissed almost a million bucks without dropping a dime herself.

By way of comparison, my mom racked up almost the same hospital bills, she didn't cost the taxpayer a penny until she went into hospice. Hospice's total bill was $12,000 paid by medicaid. A far cry from nearly a million.

By the way, Mom paid a lot more than $12,000 in taxes over her lifetime. Sharon managed to pay hardly any taxes because of the way she manipulated the system.

But I am the selfish one.