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Bonus Blog - Are you better off?
Author: TriSec
Date: 09/03/2012 21:33:26
I saw this making the rounds over the past weekend. Looks like Mitt is dusting off the old saw, asking everyone "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?"
Well, I can answer this. And it pains me to say, "No, I am not better off now than I was four years ago." But.....none of it is President Obama's fault.
Four years ago was September, 2008. Let's fire up the wayback machine, shall we?
In 2008, you all know I worked for President Bush's cousin (Jonathan Bush, at athenahealth.) It was a great job, close to home, and the pay was great. The year before, we even went to Disney World, and that ain't cheap.
But come January 2009, and the ongoing downturn and disaster that was the economy...well, athena decided they didn't need me anymore that February. (Admittedly, I may have helped with that decision, but it was still completely unwarranted, IMHO.)
I was out of work initially for just two months. New President Obama signed some early stimulus packages into law, and one of them was a subsidy for COBRA, which would have kept us on insurance until my new benefits kicked in.
Except they didn't. I lasted just 90 days at that company, getting the axe again mere days before my probation was over. "It just wasn't working out", said the manager at the time, and now in the rear-view mirror, I agree with him; I was bored silly there.
So now things got ugly....the subsidy ran out, and with it any hope of paying for commercial insurance. Unemployment helped, but we quickly went into hand-to-mouth mode. I had some savings and fortunately stock options from athena, but we burned through all that during the first unemployment cycle of the year.
Somehow...we hung on until I landed a temp job in Boston in November. I at least felt like Christmas was saved. But of course....temp means no benefits, no vacation days, no sick time, and no holiday pay. we still barely struggled along, dodging calls here, robbing Peter to pay Paul there, and getting cable bounced a few times.
Fast-forward to July of 2010. My car blows up. Literally. Timing belt lets go, and the cylinders clash. Insurance won't pay a penny for that sort of thing, and I needed a car to get to work, so now it was on to raiding the IRAs to pay for a many-thousand dollar repair. (Bonus: car has been purring along ever since. I consider that a rebuilt engine and it's been running like a new car, but I digress.)
Again, things are scraping along the bottom of the barrel, and with the temp job showing no signs of turning permanent, and in fact the company itself seeming to be in decline, I decided it was time to cut my losses and start looking again.
I finally got a job at a small billing company out in the suburbs, but I was completely overqualified for the position. Insurance wasn't even an option, I was actually making less than when I was contracting; I only took it because it was permanent and I wouldn't have to worry about where my paycheck was coming from each week. Fortunately, I still had LL Bean to make ends meet, and this was only 4 miles away from my "day job". I worked every second I could lay my hands on, and in the process managed to forget what my wife and child looked like.
Fast-forward again, through a full calendar year to Fall 2011. The ACA has passed, and the company I'm working for went out of their way to badmouth it and blame it for their increased costs. As employees, we'd have to shoulder an even larger cut of the healthcare premiums, and all of our rates went up by an average of 25%. I could never afford insurance at that place, the monthly cost for a family plan with the carrier we had was actually more than our monthly rent. This was never an option.
So again....it was back to the hunt. I had a cup of coffee with Fallon that November, then the trail went cold over the holidays. But wonder of wonders, with the new year came a new phone call, and I had the Job!
It was back in my industry (Electronic Data Interchange) and I was back with a payor (who historically pay better than the billing side), and best of all...back with a healthplan! I"m old enough to remember the days when if you worked for the plan, you got it for free, but those are long gone. Nevertheless....Fallon offers the employees their top-of-the-line plan at entry level rates, and throws a ton of incentives and subsidies to help reduce the costs even further.
It was a great relief, when 5 months on the job and my appendix goes nuts.
So....I know I took the long road to get here, but no, I am not better off now than I was four years ago. But better than last year? Yes. Two years ago? YES! Three years ago! HELL YAH!
I still firmly believe that the changes brought on by the ACA have resulted in explosive growth in the healthcare industry. I believe I have one of those jobs.
President Obama has done alright by me. And like one of the pictures I've seen circulating on the Book of Faces says, "It took your guy eight years to fuck everything up, shouldn't our guy get eight years to fix it?"
Mitt Romney’s campaign sought to capitalize Monday on the admission that Americans are not better off than they were four years ago by a prominent surrogate for President Obama.
The surrogate, Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, answered “no” on Sunday when CBS “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer asked if Americans are better off now than they were when Obama took office.
O’Malley attempted a quick pivot, declaring “that’s not the question of this election” and pinning the recession, job losses and budget deficits on George W. Bush. But O’Malley’s response nevertheless provided new fodder to the Romney campaign, which announced on Monday morning that Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan would focus on the “better off” question at an afternoon rally in North Carolina, the state where Democrats will open their national convention on Tuesday.
In his nomination acceptance speech at last week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa, Romney channeled Ronald Reagan, who in 1980 asked Americans if their lives had improved under Democrat Jimmy Carter. Reagan used Americans’ economic dissatisfaction to help him win the election that year, and Romney appears determined to duplicate Reagan’s strategy and success.
“This president can ask us to be patient,” Romney said. “This president can tell us it was someone else’s fault. This president can tell us that [in] the next four years he’ll get it right. But this president cannot tell us that you’re better off today than when he took office.”
Other Obama surrogates struggled to answer the “better off” question during appearances on the Sunday political talk shows. Most refused, even when pressed, to give yes-or-no answers, sticking to the Obama campaign’s message that the president inherited serious economic problems, prevented them from turning into catastrophes, and got the economy back on track with steady -- if slow -- job growth.
O’Malley’s more direct answer sent Democrats scrambling to minimize the damage on Monday.
Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse said on CNN Monday morning that Americans are “absolutely” better off than they were four years ago.
“The truth is that the American people know we were literally a plane -- the trajectory was towards the ground. He got the stick and pulled us up out of that decline,” Woodhouse said.
O’Malley also appeared on CNN Monday and said the nation is “clearly better off” today than it was when Obama took office because rapid job losses have turned into gradual gains.
Well, I can answer this. And it pains me to say, "No, I am not better off now than I was four years ago." But.....none of it is President Obama's fault.
Four years ago was September, 2008. Let's fire up the wayback machine, shall we?
In 2008, you all know I worked for President Bush's cousin (Jonathan Bush, at athenahealth.) It was a great job, close to home, and the pay was great. The year before, we even went to Disney World, and that ain't cheap.
But come January 2009, and the ongoing downturn and disaster that was the economy...well, athena decided they didn't need me anymore that February. (Admittedly, I may have helped with that decision, but it was still completely unwarranted, IMHO.)
I was out of work initially for just two months. New President Obama signed some early stimulus packages into law, and one of them was a subsidy for COBRA, which would have kept us on insurance until my new benefits kicked in.
Except they didn't. I lasted just 90 days at that company, getting the axe again mere days before my probation was over. "It just wasn't working out", said the manager at the time, and now in the rear-view mirror, I agree with him; I was bored silly there.
So now things got ugly....the subsidy ran out, and with it any hope of paying for commercial insurance. Unemployment helped, but we quickly went into hand-to-mouth mode. I had some savings and fortunately stock options from athena, but we burned through all that during the first unemployment cycle of the year.
Somehow...we hung on until I landed a temp job in Boston in November. I at least felt like Christmas was saved. But of course....temp means no benefits, no vacation days, no sick time, and no holiday pay. we still barely struggled along, dodging calls here, robbing Peter to pay Paul there, and getting cable bounced a few times.
Fast-forward to July of 2010. My car blows up. Literally. Timing belt lets go, and the cylinders clash. Insurance won't pay a penny for that sort of thing, and I needed a car to get to work, so now it was on to raiding the IRAs to pay for a many-thousand dollar repair. (Bonus: car has been purring along ever since. I consider that a rebuilt engine and it's been running like a new car, but I digress.)
Again, things are scraping along the bottom of the barrel, and with the temp job showing no signs of turning permanent, and in fact the company itself seeming to be in decline, I decided it was time to cut my losses and start looking again.
I finally got a job at a small billing company out in the suburbs, but I was completely overqualified for the position. Insurance wasn't even an option, I was actually making less than when I was contracting; I only took it because it was permanent and I wouldn't have to worry about where my paycheck was coming from each week. Fortunately, I still had LL Bean to make ends meet, and this was only 4 miles away from my "day job". I worked every second I could lay my hands on, and in the process managed to forget what my wife and child looked like.
Fast-forward again, through a full calendar year to Fall 2011. The ACA has passed, and the company I'm working for went out of their way to badmouth it and blame it for their increased costs. As employees, we'd have to shoulder an even larger cut of the healthcare premiums, and all of our rates went up by an average of 25%. I could never afford insurance at that place, the monthly cost for a family plan with the carrier we had was actually more than our monthly rent. This was never an option.
So again....it was back to the hunt. I had a cup of coffee with Fallon that November, then the trail went cold over the holidays. But wonder of wonders, with the new year came a new phone call, and I had the Job!
It was back in my industry (Electronic Data Interchange) and I was back with a payor (who historically pay better than the billing side), and best of all...back with a healthplan! I"m old enough to remember the days when if you worked for the plan, you got it for free, but those are long gone. Nevertheless....Fallon offers the employees their top-of-the-line plan at entry level rates, and throws a ton of incentives and subsidies to help reduce the costs even further.
It was a great relief, when 5 months on the job and my appendix goes nuts.
So....I know I took the long road to get here, but no, I am not better off now than I was four years ago. But better than last year? Yes. Two years ago? YES! Three years ago! HELL YAH!
I still firmly believe that the changes brought on by the ACA have resulted in explosive growth in the healthcare industry. I believe I have one of those jobs.
President Obama has done alright by me. And like one of the pictures I've seen circulating on the Book of Faces says, "It took your guy eight years to fuck everything up, shouldn't our guy get eight years to fix it?"
