Hello. I am EconAtheist, from Madison, WI. I used to frequent here quite a bit but then grew weary of politics... so I thought (but I'll get to that, after the fold). I attended the first two YearlyKos "festivals" and had a great time with everyone... including the comedians! friggin' comedians... =| But here I am again, and if you'll bear with me, let me explain why.
[invisible fold here]
I'm have a B.A. in Economics and have experienced (but not completely finished) both law school and graduate business school, so I have quite a bit of knowledge in the critical intersection between contract law and economic efficiency: To make a long story short, each and every transaction/contract in both disciplines is predicated on equal bargaining power. That is by definition. No wiggle room there. Any transaction/contract that does not abide by said level playing field is necessarily an inefficient outcome to society. Again, that is by definition.
So as you can imagine, Scott Walker has me in enough of a fit over his unprecedented power-grab and attack on collective bargaining re: public sector employees (... how can anyone be on equal bargaining terms when facing the taxpaying, voting base of any municipality, county or state?...) such that he put himself on top of my national shit list, real fast. I'm not going to let him destroy my state's workers - and their damned good performance - with his myopic and utterly baseless attempt to yank the rug from under our superior education system that Wisconsin has traditionally enjoyed, for decades upon decades. And let's not even get into the bullshit where he exempted only those state unions that supported him for governor. Or the Koch brothers. Or the nationwide assault on collective bargaining.
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But that's just one part of my story; I've also got a personal stake in this. If I may simply copy-pasta a FB note to a friend:
I have not been fucking spectacular. =\ ... haven't worked for 4 years, as of last week. Had no health insurance since premiums were over $10k/yr, up until about 2.5 yrs ago (then Wisconsin passed a law letting low-income single people onto the State Medicare rolls, so I got on that). SO: I have a pretty nasty and yet-to-be-settled sleep disorder that I've always been aware of but didn't affect my life to the point where I couldn't work any longer... until around 2006. I had a great job with the V.A., with great benefits... but I got let go because I was more than one minute late about once a week... and working for the V.A. is like being in the armed services; you're considered AWOL if you're a minute late. =| so dumb... but it was getting to the point where I'd sleep during my 45-min lunch, just to make it through the work day. Anyhow we've done all the sleep apnea bullshit, CPAP machine, meditation and biofeedback, and I've tried almost every prescription drug on the face of the earth; no solutions as of yet. I just toss and turn a lot. For a while I had to take a nap every afternoon - even after I stopped working and wasn't exactly pushing myself - I got such little sleep at night. Right now I make it most of the time w/o a nap but I never really feel like I get any restorative sleep... sigh... OK, MORE: I had a CAT scan on my head/neck after I got a big headache from lifting weights - and I had both a small dissection in one artery (not severe, not uncommon... IF YOU'RE SIXTY =| lol seriously though it's not common in people my age, but it's not unheard of; was probably caused by me holding my breath while I was lifting - something detaches from the inside of the artery and makes a little cut... but man let me tell you WHAT a headache that was)... and the artery on the other side they found a teeny aneurysm (nothing dramatically worrisome, at least as of now). Bah. So right now we're doing tests for any connective tissue disorders... I just had an echocardiogram; nothing unusual there... and the next step is an array of blood tests for all kinds of weird shit that geneticists have discovered over the past 10-20 yrs... but the kicker is if the Medicare will pay for the tests, so the docs have to make their case that I need it done, and meanwhile I wait. Like I haven't BEEN DOING ALMOST NOTHING for long enough. =| Kind of pisses me off that some jackoff who abused his body and has an average post-surgical life expectancy of ~3 yrs gets a $500k liver transplant, no questions asked... and I'm stuck waiting a month just for some blood tests.
I was a ~little~ bitter when I puked that out. I should note that my sleep/rest has only gotten better as time has gone on, and I'm not too far from being able to at least work part-time or go back to school. More importantly though, if my arterial dissection had torn some more w/o my headache becoming any worse, and if I hadn't had insurance, I'd have just tried to have slept it off... and if I'd started suffering intercranial bleeding?... the stats are about 50/50 that you die on the way to the hospital... if you wake up and manage to call 9-11 in time, that is.
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Okay.
Cocknozzle Walker is already threatening all kinds of cuts to the state Medicare program - I'm eligible only because (1) former governor Jim Doyle and the other Dems managed to pass a law (an altered version of the existing "BadgerCare", which had been only for low-income families) letting low-income single adults onto the Medicare rolls, and (2) I applied the at the precise minute they opened the website for applications, in june of '08. For the record, the waiting list to get on the rolls is massive. I feel shitty for those that are getting screwed; they should be afforded the same opportunity to get preventative care, yearly checkups and overall saving our limited resources by not waiting until medical catastrophes unfold. I'm also worried that Scott Walker and his GOP toadies will just dump my "part" of the BadgerCare program and leave me w/ nothing but catastrophic insurance, a massive gain to my current medication copays and a complete halt to my continued progress that has relied so much on my visits to specialists... not to mention that I'd essentially be S.O.L. on keeping tabs on my little arterial dissection and, oh yeahhhh, that little ANEURYSM. BTW - the vast majority of the doctors I see work for the University of WI and would be affected by Walker's plans to yank collective bargaining.
Well. You've probably all seen nyceve's epic diaries, so I don't think I need to belabor the lessons in the healthcare industry.
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My point is that I'm pissed to all hell, fired up and need to re-enter the political fray. I've been FBing some (and sharing some DK links) but that's not good enough. I marched at the capitol with ~70,000 protestors... but that's still not enough... I want (1) any and all changes to collective bargaining OFF THE TABLE, and (2) that rat bastard corporate sellout to "Keep his government hands out of my Medicare!" [epic teabagger protest sign]. I know that WI faces a 2-yr deficit of ~$3B, but that's only *5%* of the overall 2-yr budget. There's no need to take a chainsaw to the budget; a bit of fat can be trimmed but more importantly WE NEED REVENUE. Stop giving away freebies to your cronies, Walker, you corporatist cock. Cutting taxes for the moneygrubbers isn't going to do shit, and he knows it... but it's on his list of "things to do and people to screw". Raise the top marginal tax rate a few points and close the bevy of loopholes for the richest among us, and temporarily raise "sin" taxes (with sunset provisions, of course). We. Need. Revenue.
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So I'm going to YearlyKos (... "NetrootsNation") in Minneapolis. There's my dramatic ending.
p.s. is there any room-sharing thread re: the event, either here or at yearlykos.org?...
p.p.s. i've yet to hear back from my 2-time roomie and need backup
p.p.p.s. no apologies for my spelling/grammar/cursing/rambling ... :D