Can’t We Even Ask People To Mail In $6 To Get Health Care Anymore?

I know some of you are going to suspect that this is satire, but I assure you that it’s not…

“Roughly 40,000 poor people have been dropped from the Oregon Health Plan this year because of their failure to make monthly premium payments, some as low as $6 a month.

…Advocates for the poor say the premiums are too expensive for some people and the government may have overestimated the ability of people to mail a check.

“It’s an enormous barrier,” said Ellen Pinney, director of the Oregon Health Action Committee. “Let alone the $6, there is the whole issue of writing a check or getting a money order, putting it in an envelope with a stamp and putting it in the mail to this place in Portland that must receive it by the due date.”

Oh good grief. You mean we can’t even ask people to mail in a whole $6 to get health care? Next thing you know we’ll be hiring government workers to treat these people like 6 year olds…

Government Worker: “Now you know that you need health care, so instead of spending that $6 on beer, I want you to mail it in.

Lazy person with no health care: ” I don’t feel like it. Maybe I’ll mail it off tomorrow.”

Government Worker: “Tomorrow will be too late. You’ll need to mail it off today.”

Lazy person with no health care: “But I want to buy beer instead and I don’t feel like licking a envelope. It’s icky.”

Is that how far we have to go to get these people to take the smallest, tiniest, most basic bit of responsibility for their own lives? I know what some of you probably think it’s “mean” for me to say that, but you know what? If you’re such a mess that mailing $6 off to get health care every month is too tough to pull off, the last thing you need is someone making pathetic excuses for you.

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