Raising the Stakes for Real

Back in 1979, my older brother Luke advocated a novel solution to the Iranian hostage crisis. “We should all fly to Tehran. Planeloads and planeloads of us. Give them tens of thousands of hostages until they beg to let all of us go.” It was, to put it mildly, counter-intuitive. And kind of brilliant, when you think of it. He was an original thinker, my brother.

He died of AIDS in 1991. My own HIV progressed to full-blown AIDS in 1993, and I went on disability. I was evidently what they call “a slow progressor,” and by 1996 I was still alive and had accessed Social Security benefits, and most importantly of all, Medicare. After dealing with countless hassles with my private insurance, it was a godsend. It is a very efficient, well-run bureaucracy. When the “cocktails” came out, the Ryan White Healthcare act paid for my life-saving meds until Medicare Part D came along. These programs literally saved my life.

Returning to the job market in my ‘50s, during the Great Recession and with a large work gap in my resume, was not a formula for getting the kind of job that brings health benefits with it. I eventually returned to work, but as a freelancer, symptomatic of the “new normal” economy. I cobbled together an income doing work I love, but there are dry stretches between editing gigs, and being able to stay on Medicare continues to save my life.

Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare is very savvy. In order not to galvanize seniors against it, changes exclude the over-55 demographic, who vote in large numbers. At 58, I am probably “safe.” I could creep into my retirement with other baby-boomers, slamming the door behind me. Sorry, Mr. Trump, but that is not okay with me. Some of us were raised with a conscience, by parents who fought against fascism in World War II. The “greatest generation” taught us a thing or two.

Tom Price, Obamacare’s biggest opponent in the House, is now Secretary of Health and Human Services. This is one of the greatest obscenities of an administration that promises to be full of them. Millions of Trump voters, ironically, are most likely to lose the insurance the Affordable Care Act brought them. I guess they will discover the hard way that karma’s a bitch.

I have been casting about for meaningful ways to effectively resist the disaster of the ACHA that threatens to befall the country, and I have decided on this one. In protest against the Republican move to gut healthcare, I have flushed a month of my AIDS medications down the toilet.  I have filmed myself doing so, and posted it on Facebook Live. I am hoping if enough people repost it, (or do the same with their own meds and film it) this protest could play a similar role to a hunger strike in galvanizing opposition to the bill. All we need is three Senators.
Meaningful resistance means the stakes have to be high and the risks very real. In the age of social media, enough people sharing that they are willing to go on a medication strike if necessary could have an enormous effect. And it can’t just come from those people who risk losing their insurance, it has to come from people who don’t.

Since Trump’s election, I have had time to get clear on the person I want to be, and I believe many of you have as well. I want to be like the RAF pilots who saved England during the Battle of Britain, like the neighbors of my mother who hid Jews in France during the war, like the Civil Rights protesters who crossed that bridge in Selma in 1963 even as the batons came crashing down on them. Most importantly, I don’t want to be the German who plugged his ears on Kristallnacht.

Frankly, I would rather die of AIDS at 60 than of anything else at 85, if living those extra years meant I had to look back on a life where, when it counted, I was not willing to risk my life to fight for what I believe in.  Universal and affordable healthcare for all, PERIOD.

Please repost, retweet, respond.

RESIST.