a rant among rants

Today was a day of pent up rants for me. It started around midnight (the turn of Tuesday to Wednesday) while I was watching the primary election coverage. An analyst had some very derogatory comments about the "youth vote," and that he thinks we'll all be playing in some huge playstation tournament in someone's dorm room on election day, and we won't be able to tear ourselves away to vote. Thusly, Barak Obama will lose, because he only has the youth vote, and we don't actually count. Anyway, you can imagine how I reacted to that. There was yelling involved. Today, I teched a show at Artaud. It's getting a lot of hype, and it's two pretty well known dance companies in SF. The first company to tech hired an almost competent stage manager. By that, I mean, she knew when the music cues should go, but I knew some of the lighting cues better than she did by the end of our one run. Oh, and I'm running sound. She's alright. Then, dinner break. We come back, and discover a gigantic mess. We have video, we have fly cues, we have lots of light cues, we have sound cues. We have no stage manager. All of the ops are seeing the show for the first time. And the choreographer's answer to us asking when certain cues should go is: you'll feel it. So, long rant somewhat shorter: spend the money to hire a stage manager! I actually charge less to SM than I make board op'ing for ODC (hourly vs. salary being the main cause). Your show will run much more smoothly, and all the house techs will like you. It's totally worth it. Then, I come home, and I can't find a freaking parking spot because it's late on Wednesday night. There is street cleaning on one side of the street in my neighborhood at 9am on Thursdays. I had to park on the Thursday side of the street, meaning I have to get up early tomorrow and look for a parking spot. Sucks. So, my actual rant. Health insurance. I finally gave in today, after talking with my housemate (she works in an ER) about health insurance and such last night. I looked at medical. I forget how very very little money I make, because I'm so careful about how I spend it. So, I think to myself, I'm living pretty far below the poverty line, I probably qualify. Oh no, my friends. To get medical, you must make less than $870 a month (for an individual). My question is this: living in San Francisco, who can afford health insurance if they make $900 a month. I make more than that, and I have no chronic medical problems, am in pretty good health, I'm 24, my family history is pretty sweet, and it would cost me about $150 a month for a decent plan through Kaiser. That's how much I spend on food in 3 weeks. To have health insurance, I would have to, basically, eat on $50 a month. Possible, but not very healthy or enjoyable. I choose to eat. I have no health insurance. There is pretty much no way I can afford health insurance. I have amazingly cheap rent (for SF), I eat at home most meals a week, I buy basically nothing other than food, I make hundreds of dollars more than the level you have to be at for medical, and yet am hundreds of dollars (per month) away from being able to afford health insurance. The gap is pretty huge here, between what is covered by the gov't, and the point at which people can afford to buy their own. I have seen no signs that either the Hillary or Obama health plans will change any of that, although Hillary will make it illegal for me to not have health insurance. They both hope to close the gap, both by expanding medicaid, and by making health insurance more affordable. I think that I will still be left in that black hole of a gap, looking forward to waiting in line at the free clinic for something small, or racking up a huge debt for something big. It's something I think about everyday. Not just when I'm balancing on top of an extension ladder, or climbing across truss to get to that hard to reach light, but when I walk across the street, or get in my car, or burn myself on the oven. I want health insurance. A mandate a la Hillary Clinton is not what's going to get it for me. Instead, that's going to take away fresh veggies and replace them with meals of rice so I can afford health insurance. Or, I'll just be breaking the law. What are they going to do when I need care and have no health insurance? Fine me? Put me in jail? Or just deny me entrance to the doctor's office? Cause that's no change at all. Let's see a health insurance plan that actually works. That will actually get people into doctors offices and out of emergency rooms. That closes the gap in coverage between people making $871 a month, and people making $2000 a month. That makes the decision of food and rent or health insurance unnecessary. I have much more ranting to do about this, but I have to move my car early. Next up: back when I was fully insured, the struggle to actually see a doctor, or: a day I cried and yelled a lot.