Friday, April 5, 2019

Why is our society so merciless?

I've spent a lot of time pondering this question. My father has reached a point in his life where I'm deciding on putting him into an assisted living facility. Right now, he has expensive home care which is slowly (if not inexorably) marching his lifetime of savings toward a zero balance (but he gets to live in his home). Assisted living will essentially cost the same thing, but will hopefully solve some issues he brought up to me regarding loneliness and boredom. My father planned well financially, he did all the right things, but the cost of home care for aged folks is staggering, and there is no insurance that pays for it except Medicaid. And Medicaid kicks in only after you're down to your last $2,000.00 of everything that you own.

I think this future that waits for most Americans is disheartening. A few are oblivious to it. They either don't want to know, or they don't want to think about it. But our healthcare industry and long-term care for people in their 80's and beyond is functionally broken and terrible. Add to this the complexity of filling out things like taxes for old folks who no longer understand how to gather together documents, and it becomes even worse. Our society is relentless, with monthly recurring bills, annual taxes that need to be filed and paid, insurance documents that need to be kept track of, accounts that need to be checked, and the list goes on and on. When I visited my father last week, he had a stack of envelopes on his desk in his office. He shrugged and told me he was overwhelmed by it all. So I spent hours going through them, paying bills, setting up autopay, etc. These are things that the care provider we hired wouldn't touch. She just wants to provide care, not get entangled in understanding paperwork or finances.

This is a new development with my father who seemed fine in just November of 2018. However, things can change rapidly for older folks. I guess I don't understand (and am a little frustrated) by how complicated our society is. I do hundreds of things every single day to keep track of just myself. I check credit cards to make sure there are no erroneous charges, I check my bank account, I check four different email addresses for correspondence, I open letters that get sent to my mailing address, I watch to see if subscriptions change their pricing and start to charge more, I clip coupons for groceries, and the list goes on and on.

Folks, you may not be aware of it, but our society is so complicated that it takes a fully functional brain of more than average intelligence to be on top of all this. But the thing is, not everyone is born with all the same tools as everyone else. And age robs us of abilities to do things that we previously took for granted. My big question about this is why? Why isn't life easier? Wouldn't it make logical sense to make a society that the lowest common denominator could easily negotiate?

It's a legitimate question with seemingly no available answer. It's no wonder that our population is plagued with anxiety. Who wouldn't be when the society at large is filled with relentless trauma and never-ending work? I wonder what the breaking point will be, or if there even is one.

9 comments:

  1. It is all the little things that eat away at our time and energy. The Internet, computers, smart phones - all supposed to make it easier, but it was easier thirty years ago when we didn't have those things.
    Sorry about your father. It won't be an easy choice.

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  2. Most of my bills are autopay so I just have to make sure there's money on my card. So that's easier than 30 years ago when everything was still on paper. But what they say is Hell is other people and it's true that it's other people who complicate things, especially government bureaucrats and insurance companies.

    Anyway if life is a simulation someone really should turn down the difficulty level.😇

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    1. Well, and then there's the robocalls trying to scam his medicare for a medical brace that he doesn't need, there's the fact that he needs to remember his supplemental insurance when he goes to the doctor because Medicare only covers 80% instead of 100% like it should, and he was late on paying his water bill and owed $16.00 and they threatened to shut off his water. This last one actually scared him. I don't know why our society is like this. Identity theft, people preying on seniors, etc.

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    2. As much as I hate agreeing with Andrew Leon, it's all about money. Take away the profit motive and you take away the reason for most crime and cruelty except crimes of passion.

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  3. Life is easier... for the wealthy.
    And they make it hard for everyone because they're busy sucking the life out of us. That's why it's so complicated, because there are so many vampires trying to suck every last bit of money out of every single one of us.

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    1. Sigh. I agree with you 100%. I just wish it wasn't true. It's kind of despairing to think about.

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  4. Ah yes, the evil profit motive. If those institutions that cared for people weren't profit driven, they might be more humane. It's an interesting time we're living through. As a society, we've made some weird choices.

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  5. I'm dealing with the same thing you are. My Dad is 83. He had a stroke in October. He's in assisted living. It seemed cheaper than home care, but the prices have jumped in the short time he's been there. So home might be cheaper if he can get through the night by himself. I'm doing everything regarding bills and taxes for him. Then I take him out to eat on Saturday, and I bring him home for dinner on Sunday because if I don't he tends to get depressed and starts begging to come home. I work full time. Etc. Etc. One thing you might consider, there are group homes for seniors that are similar to assisted living. They're the cheapest option when your loved one can't be alone. I'm considering it too.

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  6. I am so sorry for what you and your father are going through. And I agree wholeheartedly about how cold and merciless some elements of our society are. There's the scamming, which is despicable, but our health care system is just as bad because we're the last developed country on earth to have for-profit health care. Take away the profit and make healthcare about human decency, and we'd all be far better off.

    Now that both my parents are gone, I'm actually grateful for their sake that they passed quickly. They didn't suffer and no one in our family could have afforded for them to be taken care of in a home, or pay for home-visit care -- who can afford such stuff besides the wealthy?

    We really, deeply need to change our world. I wish you and your father relief and peace.

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