Can We Edit Out the Catch-22s From Policy?

What if we, the people were to create a small independent committee who's only job is to edit all policy for catch-22s that render so much of civil administration ineffective for the sole purpose of making sure the immense imbalance between the elite and the people remain in tact? We can call it the Catch-22 Policy Patrol. The committee members will be reformed neocons who are experts in paradoxical, circular reasoning that can make the most absurd "logic" appear rational.

A Real Life Example

Trudy Lieberman, director of the Health and Medical Reporting Program at the Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY wrote a series in the Columbia Journalism Review about the candidate's health plans and how they might affect ordinary people across the nation.

In part II, Lieberman covered the story of a relatively healthy 62-year old father and his sickly 43-year old son. The father works two jobs as the county’s head jailer, and as a grill cook at McDonalds, earning approximately $30,000 per year. His health insurance pays 70% of a bill. He pays the remaining 30%, in addition to paying copays and premiums. He cannot afford to add his 44-year old wife.

His son is a diabetic, who has trouble breathing, talking, walking...he has no job, no money and no insurance. He can't afford medical care, the insulin and the test strips he needs to control his blood sugars. In fact, he can't even afford the transportation it would take to get medical care. Luckily, Abbott Laboratories was willing to give him free strips as long as he applied for Medicaid and was rejected.

"Getting to a doctor regularly, though, is problematic. “I don’t have any money to take him,” says his father. “I’m just broke.” What spare cash he once had, he used to send his youngest daughter to college. Still, he was planning to use eighty dollars from the $570 paycheck he would get the next day to buy test strips for his son to tide him over until Abbott’s supply arrived."

Where is the Catch-22?

Well, Arkansas has a program where you could become eligible for Medicaid (Medicaid for the medically needy program) by spending down. The way it works is after a person accumulates a certain amount in medical bills, he or she may be able to qualify for this program. The catch is he or she must have the money upfront to pay the medical bills in order to accumulate them. If a he or she can't afford transportation, how in the world can he afford to pay doctor bills?

In addition, if you can navigate through all the "catch-22's" involved in qualifying for SSDI, he or she must wait an additional two years for Medicare. At that rate, why not sponsor hunting programs, and hire sharp shooters to thin the "herd" of Medicaid recipients once a year?

Aside from the numerous catch-22s incorporated into our system of health care, and anything and every program designed to help the less fortunate, we are learning that paradoxical laws written with confusing rhetoric designed to trap its victims in no win situations, does not only apply to the poor, but to we, the "average" people as well, which is becoming more apparent every day.