JYProvocative Question #9 – Running For Office

Have you ever ran / would you run for political office? Under which circumstances would you consider running for office?

First of all, I ran for office twice in my youth — 50 years ago. When we lived on Long Island (New York), my first husband and I were the only two registered Liberals in Nassau County, so when the party was looking for candidates, they stopped by. Jeff said “no” because he was a teacher at a college and it didn’t see it as appropriate. On the other hand, was a recent new mother and not on the fast track professionally. I could find the time to do it, so I said yes.

What I wanted to talk about was creating a medical system for everyone. Of course this was the early 1970s. Jobs were relatively secure and everyone thought it would always be like that. Why not let the companies they worked for pay for health insurance?

I had recently survived surgery including a 4-month hospital stay to repair my broken spine. I was painfully aware of what this kind of medical event can do to a normal family. Every penny Jeff and I had saved from wedding gifts and everything else was gone. We were zeroed out and still thousands of dollars in debt. We never caught up. We eventually paid off the hospital and doctors, but we were effectively always out of money. We were both working, but all that did was keep us going. The medical bills were endless.

So. I went on the road to push for “medical care for everyone.” I had some reasonable connections in the newspaper community and I was a good talker — and had something to say. I got more and longer write ups in the papers than someone running for a roll as representative in a minor party would typically get.

When I talked about medical care for everyone, people acted like I’d spit on the flag. Medicine for everyone? That might raise taxes! I wonder how many of them are now stuck on Medicare and wondering if maybe they made the wrong choice. Politics were not nearly as brutal as they are now. Taking an unpopular position didn’t result in death threats. There was no Internet. Medicare and Medicaid were in their infancy.

The world was changing and the jobs people thought would last a lifetime and would happily end with a gold watch and a comfortable pension? Those jobs would vanish faster than a speeding bullet during the 1980s and 90s when we enthusiastically handed over our entire manufacturing base to China and other countries who paid workers poorly. Now people complain they don’t want Chinese stuff. Well, folks, you should have thought about that 50 years ago when Reagan “borrowed” all the money cached to Social Security and never returned it. You should have considered it when Clinton (who I otherwise liked) was happily hand in paw with the Republicans, eagerly sending our businesses and jobs far away. It’s not that I mind other countries raising their standard of living, but it would have been nice to keep ours, too.

I remember talking to Garry and saying “This doesn’t sound like a good idea.” He agreed. For whatever good it did.

Today you can’t buy any electronics made in the U.S.A. Or a telephone including the iPhone which is just as Chinese as every other piece of electronics. Nor refrigerators, stoves, or most clothing either.

I love Nikki Haley’s statement that “China will end up in the dustbowl of history.” Really? Because they’ve been around for thousands of years compared to our few hundred and if anyone’s going to wind up in the dustbowl of history, it’s probably us.

It’s almost as if we wanted to get rid of our manufacturing base. If that wasn’t what we intended, what DID we intend? Someone enlighten me. I think I missed the explanation. All I saw was a way for big industry to get bigger and more bloated while laying off hundreds of thousands — probably, in the end, millions — of American workers.

In the course of being blindsided by medical bills, I learned how medical bills were the primary cause of personal bankruptcy in the U.S. — which I thought was shameful. Not for the people going into bankruptcy, but that this nation should allow this to be true.

The insurance we got from the college was great until you reached its limits and after that, you paid a percentage. It started at 20% and eventually rose to 100% if you had a huge medical year. Getting a spine repaired was definitely a big year, medically-speaking. Two years later, Owen was born with two club feet and needed twice weekly treatments to straighten his feet plus a couple of sides of surgery. His daughter was born with the same problem (maybe worse) and I was surprised at how little progress had been made in the interim. The medical bills killed him, too. Did I see this coming? Yes. Did it help? Not really.

I lost my race that year and the next year, after which I packed it in. There had never been a real chance of winning. I’m not the kind of person to make a formidable candidate. I’m not tough enough or eager enough for power. Today, of course, I’m too old to think about it and am astonished at how other people OLDER than me are managing. I don’t think I’d survive two weeks in office much less four to eight years.

We are always asking how come we don’t have better candidates. So I ask you: are YOU ready to run? How about your kids? If they wanted to run, would you encourage them? How many of our political leaders have been assassinated? Is America a safe place to be in politics?

Categories: #Health, Anecdote, Election, Medical, Provocative Questions, Voting

Tags: #JYProvocative Question, #Photography, Elections, Marilyn Armstrong, medical and health care, Running for office, Voting