I heard the young smart folks on NPR last night dissecting the health bill, something I was forced to confront for the first time after the big open summit held by the Commander-in-Chief and televised on C-SPAN.
 
That was the promise when all this started long ago, when the world was warm. I wish I could have seen it. I understand it was pretty good theater, and featured some earnest dialogue on the scope of government.
 
The commentators seemed to be reconciled to the idea the Democrats have painted themselves into a corner. The debate seemed to be about the spiraling cost of insurance for everyone, or rather for those who are currently covered.
 
The costs are not going up for the uninsured, which is one of the incentives for not being covered at all.
 
The recent premium increases out in California have got people fixated on cost, and yet the legislation does not lower costs on anything, and in fact will cause a net increase for most. Nothing they can do will change the inconvenient truth of it, with apologies to Mr. Gore.
 
The 36-45 million uninsured people that this is actually about- since this is going to get more expensive for all of us are an interesting group. Many of that number are young citizens in good health who are simply making an economic choice not to buy into an expensive option that they do not need at the moment.
 
They are being Americans.
 
Of course, nothing in the legislation addresses the non-Americans who have no benefits, either. They will continue to use the emergency rooms that cannot turn them away.
 
There are indeed millions who do need assistance, and for a variety of reasons cannot get it. It sucks. I know people whose basic liberty is hostage to health coverage provided by spouses that they cannot live with and cannot leave. Something has to be done, I agree, and I do not know precisely what it is.
 
Actually, I am not sure what is in the bill that they may jam through in a process of “reconciliation” on the Hill. There will be hell to pay over that in the Fall, but the Democrats seem to have reconciled themselves to the prospect and the rest of us are reconciled to the idea that we going to pay anyway.
 
Truth in advertising, I am one of the partial free-loaders. At the moment I am pretty healthy and do not avail myself of the health coverage at the office. I rely for emergencies on the tri-service insurance provided by the military to the retired farts. It is better than nothing, I suppose, and I don’t know what is going to happen to the premiums under the new law.
 
I gave a buck yesterday to a woman with bad teeth- otherwise not much different from my mom or yours- who was holding a cardboard sign pleading for help yesterday.
 
She had taken up a position on the driver’s side of the exit from I-66 to Glebe Road, which features a long light cycle. The more premium begging spot is further down, at the intersection of Glebe and Fairfax Drive where the light cycle in unbearably long, and the homeless man who claims to be a veteran takes up his position on the island can glower at the waiting drivers.
 
Even if this was not the best begging spot, the wait was uncomfortably long enough that there was time to talk to her as I waited for the light to change. She said this was a temporary gig, just until her disability was approved.
 
Must be Social Security, I thought, and wished her well in the chilly wind before going on to the garage under the building where I do whatever it is that I do during the week.
 
The garage is frustrating. We share it with the hotel and the apartment tower across the alley, both buildings sharing the cavernous void carved out of the earth below them. That is a bit of what the legislation is about, the waiting drivers being the 85% of the citizens who have coverage and are nervous about the increases to pay for it, and the ones who are fit enough to stand outside in the gusting wind but have found an entrepreneurial approach to tapping the income stream.
 
Some of the drainage pipes have burst along the way, and if the three levels are full, there are circumstances where you must take the slots available, whether you like them or not, even if vile substances have gathered in the drip that hits the roof and the trunk.
 
I imagine there will be stalactites someday from the minerals, if the garage lasts that long.
 
I certainly do not want them on the car, though. The Bluesmobile was getting me down. The salt scum had been deepening on the bright finish since the 5th of the month. I try never to let the corrosive stuff rest of the bright work and the undercarriage even overnight if I can help it. I patronize the coin wash up in Michigan when I am there, even if there is still new snow on the ground just to wash the nasty stuff away.
 
Here in Blue Arlington there are few coin washes since the land is too valuable and the zoning is strict. The facility that the Marines provide at Henderson Hall is poorly maintained, never has change in the dollar bill converter, and currently has one of the two bays marked with an orange cone that proclaims “out of service.”
 
The alternative is the Mr. Wash, an industrial old-school full service car wash, which used to give coupons to get the cost down to a dozen dollars, less the tire dressing and other fancy touches. Naturally, with all the cars in the region needing a good sluicing down, the wait at any reasonable time is enough to daunt even the most conscientious driver.
 
I cut out of work to at least temporarily stop the corrosion, driving through the remaining salty puddles to get there. The big American car was vacuumed and run through the long tunnel of whirring brushes and soapy high-velocity water and them blasted with high-power air.
 
The little people, men and women, who wait in the cold in the parking lot do a nice job of wiping down and sopping up the remaining water outside, and I popped a buck in the tool-box that serves as the tip jar. The workers are all from Salvador and Guatamala, which is why the intersection just to the north is termed “Guatamarlington.”
 
They don’t beg. I have never seen one with a sign in Spanish. Only the Americans do that.

Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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