I don’t know. It seems like sometimes people start off with something principled and they wind up in a really strange place. That certainly happened with David Gilbert, a college-aged hell-raiser who in the 1960’s fulminated against racism and the Vietnam War as a key member of the Students for a Democratic Society. When that organization proved too timid for his tastes, he co-founded The Weathermen, a group that utilized terrorism rather than rhetoric. In 1970, his girlfriend died while making bombs in a Greenwich Village townhouse.
Things reached a truly absurd state when Gilbert joined up with six members of the Black Liberation Army to rob a Brink’s truck in 1981. The idea was to reappropriate money to the victims of slavery.
They stole $1.6 million in cash from a Brink’s armored car at the Nanuet Mall, in Nanuet, New York, killing a Brink’s guard, Peter Paige, seriously wounding Brink’s guard Joseph Trombino, slightly wounding Brink’s truck driver guard, James Kelly, subsequently killing two Nyack police officers, Edward O’Grady and Waverly Brown, and seriously wounding Police Detective Artie Keenan.
That “principled” escapade earned Gilbert a conviction on three felony murder counts and a 75-year sentence in the slammer. On the day he resigned from office, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo commuted Gilbert’s sentence to time served. Gilbert could be a free man soon if he can convince the parole board he’s not a threat, but that doesn’t make him any less of an idiot. Somewhere, somehow, he lost his moral compass and went off the rails.
I thought about his example when I saw that Delta Air Lines is now going to jack up the health insurance premium for employees who aren’t vaccinated against COVID-19.
Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian notified employees Wednesday that they will face $200 monthly increases on their health insurance premiums starting Nov. 1 if they aren’t vaccinated against Covid-19, citing steep costs to cover employees who are hospitalized with the virus.
Unvaccinated employees will face other restrictions, including indoor masking effective immediately and weekly Covid-19 tests starting Sept. 12 the Atlanta-based airline said in announcing new Covid policies for employees.
The connection with Gilbert is probably not immediately obvious, but I imagined that those who feel strongly that the choice of whether or to get inoculated is a matter of personal liberty will react poorly to discovering that it comes with a hefty price tag. Some of them may become convinced that their freedoms are under threat and find “principled” reasons to fight back with violence.
It’s not a wholly ridiculous idea. I can easily imagine circumstances where the government insists that people make health decisions that should be left to their discretion. For example, reproductive rights could be completely curtailed or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, there could be a program of coerced sterilization.
Infectious disease, whether we’re talking about polio, small pox, measles, or whooping cough, creates a challenge to personal liberty. I’d actually be a little concerned if there were no push back against compelled vaccination programs, no matter how clear it is that the benefits outweigh the risks and costs.
There are obviously nuances to this. Delta Air Lines is not the U.S. Government and no one has any “right” to be employed there. It’s a bit different than telling parents that their children have to be in school but they can’t go to the free public school unless they are vaccinated. Either way, though, the exercise of liberty isn’t free.
It’s important to note that Delta isn’t firing unvaccinated workers. Instead, they’re making it expensive and extremely inconvenient to eschew the shot. It’s similar to the strategy the NFL is using to coerce compliance among football players. We’re going to see more of this now that the Pfizer shot has been fully approved by the FDA.
We’re already seeing other inconveniences, like service industries demanding proof of vaccination to eat in a restaurant or attend a game or concert. Collectively, this creates a definite second citizenship class. No one should be surprised if they feel oppressed and some of them begin to act accordingly.
Yet, however much they may think that they’re in the right and acting to protect all of our freedoms, when they lash out violently, they’re going to look just as stupid as David Gilbert, and possibly they’re going to do just as much time in prison.
Maybe forty years later some disgraced governor will have mercy on them. Who knows?
I was reading this morning that in some Ford plants, up to 20% of workers are calling off, many in response to the word that masks are once again going to be required in the workplace. Their spots are being filled, for the time being, by temporary workers. I imagine we will see a lot of this sort of thing over the coming months. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the company I work for revert back to mandatory masks in our offices.
At first glance, my instinct is to be okay with insurance companies charging more to the unvaccinated. After all, insurance companies have charged higher premiums for a long time when someone engages in high risk behavior. My dad, who was hospitalized with COVID for several weeks, prior to vaccinations being available, racked up hospital bills totaling upwards of $200K, taking into consideration post hospitalization therapy and ongoing care. The vaccine issue just carries a lot more emotional and political baggage than, say, smoking. We are going to be walking a very rough and rocky path over the next little bit, while companies and governments work through exactly what the proper and societally acceptable point is for trying to incentivize vaccinations in the obstinate and angrily rebellious among us.
If things do really get seriously clamped down in the public sphere, I would not be at all surprised to see the sorts of reactions you are citing in your post. Right now we just have a lot of screaming at school board meetings, and sign carrying outside hospitals now requiring masks. But if the legal challenges against employer mask requirements fail, there is little doubt that some will start considering more drastic demonstrations of their unhinged rage.
5
I’m really uncomfortable to point of opposition with either raising insurance rates or withholding care from the unvaccinated. Does it apply when they get their booster shot, for example? Wellness programs are already a bad idea and problematic, and don’t achieve the goals they set out to do. Charging more for smokers hasn’t reduced their propensity to smoke, it just causes them to drop their insurance plan.
I don’t know the “right” sticks to use but this one is wrong, imo. Mandates are much more defensible than taxing/charging people.
“I’m really uncomfortable to point of opposition with either raising insurance rates or withholding care from the unvaccinated.”
I’m not uncomfortable at all, but only for the willfully unvaccinated. I believe there should be carve-outs for the immune-compromised, children too young to be vaccinated, and people with actual real religious beliefs (like the JWs, for example). But I have no such discomfort for anyone else. That said, I know some people who are deathly afraid of needles, and I wonder if there’s an oral delivery system for the vaccine. That also said, my teenager is one of those people who often faints when he gets a shot or has blood drawn, and guess what? He got the vaccine the moment he was eligible.
As for witholding care, I’m a little less comfortable, but not by much. I have read too many stories about cancer patients and heart patients being sent home or having to wait for treatment because unvaccinated asshats are occupying those beds. I’ve also read too many stories about burned out doctors and nurses, many with symptoms of PTSD that stem from witnessing so many deaths and so much grief. My sympathies are with them,not the dumbfuck that doesn’t believe in science when it comes to prevention, then shows up at the ER asking for treatment (and often, too late, suddenly believing in vaccines).
“Does it apply when they get their booster shot, for example?”
Not trying to be a smartass, but why would a willfully unvaccinated person get a booster if they’ve already declined the vaccine to begin with? In any event, I would assume the higher premium would be adjusted down once the unvaccinated asshat gets the vaccine.
“Mandates are much more defensible than taxing/charging people.”
I certainly agree with this sentiment, but until such a mandate is in effect, other tactics are necessary.
I think it undermines the entire purpose of universal health care. It treats people as health care consumers, obsessed with “incentives” of individuals rather than collective action. I believe in that principle. You don’t triage based on vaccinated status, you triage based on chances of survival. Allowing the hospitals to be full is a public policy failure, but charging the unvaccinated isn’t going to bring capacity up. It’s just punishment for its own sake.
My point on boosters is that you’re going to eventually miss more people as the vaccinated campaign continues (it’s incredible so few have missed their second shot as it is). Maybe someone gets their initial shot, but they fail to get their booster (for whatever reason). Are they counted as vaccinated or not? In Israel, they are updating the system so that if you don’t get your booster you’re barred from events. That sounds fine to me, but if we are withholding care or charging more based on vaccination status, are they included in that as updates continue?
Also, downvoting me (not saying it was you, Brendan) for expressing an opinion that we shouldn’t trash the principles of universal health care? That’s some bullshit.
Is this what’s called a “slippery slope” argument — if governments “get away” with requiring vaccinations, then the jackboots will be soon be heard in the streets?
I can’t quite tell whether you think this is justified or not. Gilbert’s hysterical rage had very little to do with what was actually happening politically in US society in 1981 – in spite of Reagan, things had been much worse a decade earlier, Nixon and the war were long gone by then. And Gilbert and the rest of his nutcase group always had many many other choices of how to demonstrate their moral superiority; they could have been much more effective in the long run if they had picked a rational path.
America has a culture that romanticizes and validates the lone wolf vigilante. But this kind of hysterical rage state – an egotistical mental illness with delusions of persecution — doesn’t really have anything to do with vaccinations per se. Paranoid people like this will find something to validate their rage. If it wasn’t vaccinations, it would be something else — “crisis actors” at Newton and Parkland, fake moon landings, Antifa buses in the suburbs, BLM is burning Portland, they’re taking away our guns, lets blow up a federal building because of Waco, etc. They are not “oppressed” but their irrational anger makes them feel that way. Unfortunately, now they have seized on vaccines to be angry about. But their anger is not rational and it cannot be tempered by rational actions on the part of governments or companies.
I very much appreciate the calm discussion of this issue. However, as someone who works in a hospital, this feels like living in the 8th circle of hell. Everything is on fire, friends (vaccinated) are getting sick, we are all worried about our families, and we have all taken oaths to care for everyone, no matter their position on vaccines prior to medical encounter. How many heart attacks and cancers have to be not treated because someone decided not to take a vaccine that we no longer tolerate this behavior. We are like everyone else who is vaccinated: holding back seething rage as our lives are made dramatically worse because of vaccine recalcitrance…just putting ourselves at risk. Look, George Washington made his army take small pox vaccines. Vaccine mandates are as old as the republic.
So, you’re damn straight that I want Federal mandates for vaccines, financial penalties for those beyond the reach, and limits on access to routine daily life for those who choose to keep the rest of us at higher risk. If you don’t want to pay $200 per month more in health insurance, take the vaccine. Freedom isn’t free.
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I believe I’ve already commented in the past about this, but here’s my take as a RN who works in an inner city ED in Atlanta GA.
At this point, if you’ve made the dumbfuck decision not to get vaccinated, that’s fine. When you start having shortness of breath, stay the fuck home, go on Facebook to get the latest updates as to which essential oils, farm animal dewormers and malaria/pool cleaner combinations will work best with your blood type, astrological sign, and obvious COVID infection.
The ED is now a Med/Surge, Tele, ICU extension, which means when people come in with real emergencies, they have to wait because all of the staff are already busy. And, to be clear, there’s plenty of empty beds, there is a severe shortage of nurses who can take care of patients. So, don’t have a heart attack, or get hit by a falling piano, or have some sort of emergent trauma, because ALL THE RNs ARE BUSY TAKING CARE OF MORONS WHO DIDN’T GET A FREE VACCINE.
Many RNs have left bedside for anything else, and a lot are just travelling because travel agencies are paying 200%-300% of normal pay. Personally, my incentive pay to pick up extra shifts where I’m a staff RN is $50.00 an hour on top of my normal hourly/differentials pay. If I went to Texas with one agency that texts me multiple times per day, I’d be making $100 an hour/ $150 an hour overtime, $50 per day food, transport from paid hotel to work and back, and $500 bonus for showing up. A lot of nurses do this for a few months to make what they would make in a year, and then do whatever they want after, like retiring from bedside. It’s not a good thing in the longrun.
Just going to put this out there: I’m fine with vaccines not being mandated. I’m also fine with EMTALA being suspended so the fucking Darwin Award Nominees can get their fucking Darwin Awards without it destroying the already crumbling “health care system”. We should be on a mass casualty triage system where not having both vaccinations = Black Tag, so go the fuck home, goodluck and Godspeed (or Trumpspeed if you’re in a Republican area I guess).
I’m getting tired of taking care of idiots who believe that God/Trump/BabyJesus doesn’t want them to get a vaccine, but that God is OK with them getting Remdesivir, dexamethasone and BiPap, followed up with an endotracheal tube and versed/propofol and blood pressure medications…until they fucking die.
There’s been a nurse shortage for years across the country. Another fucking year of this and there won’t be enough nurses to keep hospitals open. Bet on it, as Arthur Gilroy used to say around here.