So about insurance...

I just want to rant about the clusterfuck that is the US health insurance "system". Said system bars newly arrived immigrants who are contributing fully through payroll or self employment taxes from claiming the same insurance state coverage that a citizen working fewer hours (and thus paying less into the system) can get. Then after the immigrant has worked long enough to qualify for employer backed insurance, that plan makes it so expensive to afford the regular meds that allow them to function in society that it is actually a better financial decision to work FEWER hours so the employer's insurer seems the immigrant not to qualify and we circle back to the State offering its good, but subpar, insurance to the immigrant. If they arrived because they married a citizen, their Green Card will expire at about the same as this insurers Russian roulette. If you're wondering, the path to citizenship can only begin a year after this date, eventually allowing the immigrant entrance into the hallowed masses of hyphenated Americans and in states like Minnesota, access to something approaching comprehensive health insurance regardless of what Congress and the current President do to the existing federal health insurance structure.

Unless I'm missing something, tax is money given to government to govern. In the US that includes the right to elect everyone all the way down to school board members. Except that immigrants are taxes AS IF they had access to those levers, DESPITE them not being allowed to vote.

Taxation without representation is tyrrany.
Penalising people who want to work MORE and contribute MORE to the economy, WITHOUT those levers doesn't make any sense.

Especially, but not only, if health problems have not developed as a result of the person's actions, but rather of deep rooted societal inequities. So go ahead, take health care from tax paying women, people of color, immigrants and disabled people (and the intersections of those and other disadvantaged groups) but don't expect your god-given Capitalist paradise to benefit from such a move and don't expect people being shat upon to stand outside in the shit shower without a response.

Peace and love,

Tim