Counting to Three

Yes, I know it’s been a while since I had anything to say in this space. I offer no excuses. I haven’t been ill, far from it: just listening, and digesting, thinking about what I see and what I want to see on the new political landscape. Now I find I do have something to say.

I am a boomer and disabled. These two facts are very pertinent to my perspective. I know I am not alone in facing our current economic challenges and I know that “I COUNT!”

I also like to think of myself as a person who, as my dear sister wrote in her revision of my current resume, has “a broad perspective, with knowledge of community resources.”

I have skills and life experience that marks me as a survivor and a peaceful warrior. I know “more than the average bear” about such things as health care, disability, welfare, bankruptcy, divorce, single parenthood, the struggles of people with AIDS and veterans with PTSD, the impact of war on young and old and civilian populations, and what it is like to live in a country that is radically different from ours and deeply impoverished. I have engaged the “system” head on most of my 61 years with my eyes wide open, on my own behalf and for others I have encountered along the way. My mind, as yet, refuses to blink.

My deepest desire is participate meaningfully in the rest of my journey.

Every morning at five my bedside radio wakes me up with NPR news. My typical week at present finds me tutoring public school children, trying to joggle my next month’s budget, and providing a free taxi service to a friend who otherwise wouldn’t be able to keep to a minimum wage job at a fast food venue. I have searched and searched for a permanent part time job that will supplement my disability income. The best I have come up with is a series of short-term jobs that somehow manage to pull the ends together – just by the hair of my chinny chin chin. I realize I am one of the “lucky ones!”

I also realize that there is a looming shortfall of “experienced” workers, as boomers retire, and that increasing numbers of my age mates are finding themselves underutilized and unable to keep up with the cost of living. Some of us, like my sister and her husband, are still working full time into their seventies. This is just a little silly for most of us, not to mention frightening, debilitating, and just plain unsustainable. Our senior population should be valued for what they are able to contribute, and should be able to live with a modicum of security, not abused and misused and abandoned to cope with ever increasing costs, some of which have been “fostered” by our own government.

We are hearing a lot these days about “smart” policy. We need to take another look at what “smart retirement” might be. This need is urgent and creative thinking on the part of the Obama administration will serve them well and benefit the entire society. There is much more to “smart retirement” than financial planning, as multitudes are witnessing their plans go up in smoke.

Three Smart Policies

ONE: On an EMERGENCY level, we need to negotiate drug prices for Medicare. We have the clout, now we need the will. We even have a system in place to borrow from, the Veteran’s administration.

A study for seven Chicago-area Members of Congress, New Medicare Drug Plans Fail to Provide Meaningful Drug Price Discounts in Chicago (Feb. 2006) found that the cost paid for the ten drugs most commonly prescribed to Medicare beneficiaries under Part D was 79% higher than that paid under government negotiated prices. This is patently absurd.

The big scare that the pharmaceutical companies raise, that negotiated prices would lessen the monies they spend on research and development, is mostly a lot of bullpucky. Most scientific research is funded by government grants (e.g., from the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, etc.), companies doing research and development, and non-profit foundations (e.g., the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, etc.). And the self-funding by the pharmaceutical companies tends towards bias, as we have seen repeatedly in recent years. We do not research the cheapest solutions.

This granny is a fond advocate of vinegar, garlic and fish oil. Not to mention subsidized exercise and time paid for “meditation” at work sites. But hey, negotiated drug prices are a mandatory first step.

TWO: A mandatory policy for job sharing. This is the wave of the future. Why not start now? Why not mandate that a percentage of any jobs created under the stimulus package be shared jobs, so that greater numbers and folks who find it impossible or extremely challenging to take a full-time job be allowed the security of a part-time stable employment?

I can think of a dozen or more jobs I could perform on a half-time basis. Under present policies they would be cheaper for my employer as well, since I am covered by a single payer health plan—Medicare. Personally, I have no doubt I would be more efficient and get more done than I did as a full-time employee, because I would have more time outside of employment to care for myself. And, if I were absent, my job would have a fallback person to cover essential services.

Since it seems we need less and less people to produce the same amount of goods, and more and more people to perform physically demanding (fast food/sales) and emotionally burdening (social services/medical delivery) service-related jobs, why not share the load? If we start with the folks who already have some income and medical care – like the people who receive social security or disability and Medicare, we are creating a viable pathway to future solutions for a younger, more able employment force.

“Shovels in the ground” doesn’t sound like it offers much future planning. Nor does it address my issues. Remember – I COUNT!

Almost anyone who, like myself, has a lifetime of experience in working in business, can rapidly fill an administrative/outreach position in education, medical care, or social services. We have had years of keeping our bosses and co-workers abreast of the functional aspects of our work. We are mature: we appreciate viable work.

So, it is with a certain measure of astonishment that I hear that the State of New Mexico is planning to hire twenty full-time emergency workers to try to cope with the fresh needs of an overburdened unemployment insurance system. Why not forty half timers?

I imagine it would be remarkably easy to determine what percentage of the population that is disabled could effectively perform shared jobs. Likewise, it should be relatively easy to determine what percentage of folks who are on social security and have no other means of income are able and willing to job-share. My proposal for Obama is that an appropriate percentage of government jobs created to service the stimulus package should be created as job shares.

Likewise, I was dismayed to hear that the Federal Aviation Agency hasn’t applied a solution such as this to the problem of the aging population of traffic controllers.

What are we waiting for?

THREE: Get out of the oil business. Manage natural resources so that we don’t commit global suicide (whether piecemeal or catastrophically). This is a more long-term goal, in fact a mission that will probably never cease. While my first two suggestions are not that difficult to accomplish, if we don’t work on this one, we might as well give up.

Petroleum is our present most pressing issue. The lowered gas prices of the past few months are a mirage and we know it. I am pleased to see many more pundits and members of the mainstream media talking “green.” And we need to put our money where our mouth is.

Endless war over increasingly scarce resources is NOT an acceptable solution even if we as Americans can manage to stay on top of the food chain.

Bearing in mind that we COUNT, and that numbers sway market forces and drive technology and invention, and that we will bear the brunt of being unable to keep up with rising utility costs, it would be SMART to help those who own homes and have limited incomes to re-organize their energy budget.

If I could afford it I would gladly pay for solar power or hot water on my home through a government subsidized low-interest rate loan and connection to the grid. Today, it seems like this idea may have shortcomings in itself. But I have no doubt that we have the technologically innovative ability to pull it off, if we put our best brains to work. Maybe we should recycle all those computer chips filling up landfills to make solar panels? Clearly, we DO need to think synergistically, because my experience with my own culture is that substitution will be much easier to achieve than using less power, having less mobility, or lowering our communication expectations. Not to mention the fact that we really do need to PRODUCE something.

Likewise, I don’t understand why there is a huge apartment complex going up a few blocks from my home in sunny New Mexico, with partial government subsidy, that has NO solar amenities.

We also need to resist development that does NOT plan for smart resource allocation. We need to evaluate future needs for fresh water, viable transportation and power systems to service planned population growth.Growth for growth’s sake, without proper constraints and safeguards is just not smart policy.

Let change honor all my relations!

Mitakuye Oyasin! Ho!