I am one of over 200,000 Minnesotans who don’t even have health insurance. If the enhanced premium tax credits for the Affordable Care Act expire on top of the rate increases cited in “‘Alarming’ hike for insurance premiums” from Oct. 1, any hope I have of affording health insurance will evaporate entirely.
I work 75 hours per week at two jobs — as an education coordinator at a child care center and as a PCA for a special-needs child. I think I make “good money” but when I actually do the numbers on my take-home pay, it comes out to not quite $17 an hour. It also comes out to enough to ensure I do not qualify for any assistance in paying for health insurance. So I remain uninsured because I cannot afford to be insured.
Health care, like the child care field I work in, is a public good. We all deserve to get the health care we need when we need it, just like families should be able to afford the child care they need. We all benefit from a system that works well. We need elected leaders to fight for us, instead of cut taxes for billionaires.
In the article regarding President Donald Trump’s stated plan to bail out soybean farmers hurt by his tariff and trade wars (“Trump plans aid package for U.S. soybean farmers,” Oct. 6), Caleb Ragland, a Kentucky farmer and president of the American Soybean Association, stated, “It’s just unfortunate that we’re being used as a bargaining chip in this trade war that’s not of our own doing.” Excuse me? During the last Trump administration the president’s tariff and trade war with China cost soybean farmers plenty, to the point where they needed federal financial bailouts. Nevertheless, in the last presidential election American farmers again voted overwhelmingly for Trump, knowing full well of their experiences from his first administration, and the fact that if elected he promised to pursue a renewed tariff and trade war with China, as well as his promises to arrest and deport their labor pool. Sorry, farmers, this is of your own doing. It is hard to swallow financing a multibillion-dollar bailout for a group of people who keep shooting themselves in their own feet.
Comments are closed.