When I exited the public school classroom several years ago, I had no idea the unforeseen bullshit I’d spare myself. There were many anti-educational evils that I grew tired of battling, yet the fucking plague wasn’t among them. Followed by the political push to force in-person education amid the rising number of COVID-19 infections and death.
Now the same illogical political bullshit reasoning that’s putting students, educators and the greater community who interacts with them at a new risk for coronavirus exposure, has used its favorite tool: threatening to withhold money. In the past, reducing school funding for so-called underperforming schools was the illogical course of political action as if providing fewer resources to address academic challenges would work.
Federal, and in some cases state, money is being threatened if schools don’t reopen as if reducing school funding will better educate students. A rational response to in-person education during a pandemic would be to increase funding in order to enhance safety and lower cluster outbreaks.
Now public schools scramble to transform themselves into environments where students can both learn and survive. There’s even talk of open classrooms. I’m guessing that’s in other places that don’t get Texan triple-degree weather nor Arctic blasts that plummet everything to below-zero temperatures.
This is one of the occasions where I’m so happy I already drink and curse. This situation isn’t forcing me to adopt two new vices.
Speaking of vices, just when kids are being forced to return to in-person education, Congress is fucking around with relief money, more children are dying from the coronavirus and the threat of evictions has resurged.
Another vice that’s coming around the corner, but hasn’t been splashed about the media yet is this: even if one survives the plague, they won’t just be a survivor, but in the eyes of health insurers, they’ll be people with pre-existing conditions.
In 2016, despite the fact that I was no longer a classroom teacher, I found myself reprising my educator role even though I was a health insurance agent. Here were some of the lesson objectives I reviewed:
- Many Americans voted against their best interest because health care had become a political football: Repeal and replace Obamacare!
- That was such a successful campaign until the same people discovered that “Obamacare,” which was later nicknamed “Trumpcare,” were both aliases for Affordable Care Act plans or “ACA” for short. No matter what you called it, this was major medical coverage that didn’t reject people based on preexisting conditions.
- Americans who rarely saw the doctor were furious that they were either obligated to get healthcare or pay a fine to take care of “sick people.” In reality, this is the nature of ALL insurance. The people who regularly pay, but rarely use their insurance ALWAYS collectively pay for those who use it. Think about it: if everyone who had a policy needed the insurance company to pay for an event at the same time, the company would go bankrupt.
- Healthcare coverage is NOT based on political affiliation. Nowhere on the health insurance application does it ask for which political party you normally vote. Therefore, there aren’t any special healthcare plans sponsored by your elected officials. It’s the same (shitty) coverage for all of us unless you are independently wealthy.
Currently, the sudden rise in “sick people” sent insurance companies scrambling. Almost like magic, free testing for COVID-19 appeared before our very eyes. Even more magical, there was no mass outcry about tax dollars being spent for testing “sick people.” That’s because those “sick people” were essential workers, the elderly, children, people with compromised immunities, people with underlying health conditions and people who originally thought this pandemic was a political hoax.
People across the political map have been infected because Rona don’t give a fuck. The triumphant who’ve battled Rona and won have now joined the millions of Americans with pre-existing conditions. Are we now going to tell them that they’re uninsurable? Will we smugly tell our fellow Americans that if they want better health insurance or even SOME health insurance then they have to get a better job?
By the way, where are those better-paying jobs? The government would like to know that as well since they are loathe to continue the extra $600 for unemployed benefits or a second round of $1200.
As a secondary math/science teacher, I encouraged my students to be lifelong learners. That’s pertinent advice for everyone these days. We’ve all been enrolled into Survival School.