Early this AM around 2:15, I was in my friendly neighborhood 24-hour CVS Pharmacy waiting for the pharmacist to fill a prescription that a text message had informed me was filled and ready for pick-up. I found myself sitting next to a gentleman who was waiting for a refill on a medication he seems to need desperately. Without it, he said, he has wild mood swings and rages and, as he put it, "If I don't have that, you wouldn't want to come within six blocks of me." We then had a little conversation about where each of us lives because, I said, I want to make sure we're at least seven blocks apart.
He told me he is not out of this medication. He actually has a few months' supply stashed away at home but he was eligible for another refill and he wanted to not wait until after the first of the year. He has no idea, he told me, what happens to his insurance or his deductibles after 1/1/18. "I may be fine," he said. "But it's so damn confusing, I can't be sure."
His fears are short-range and long: He doesn't understand how his current plan, which he got under Obamacare, may be changing. He also doesn't know how it may be changing in the future. The uncertainty, he said, is bad for his health. "The problem," he said, "is not what will the Republicans do or what will the Democrats do? It's that it's so f'ing partisan that all they want to do is undo what the other did. We're living in a world where every time someone wins an election by five votes, my health care changes, my taxes change, all sorts of laws change…"
I told him I didn't think it was as bad as all that and he replied, "Well, it's sure heading in that direction" and I agreed and then my prescription was ready and I got up to get it and we said a friendly good-bye and I left and that was the end of it except that I sure hope he has a supply of those pills he needs because he might live within six blocks of me.
Since then, I've been thinking about uncertainty. A week or two ago, I heard an economist guy express an interesting view on the Republican tax cut for corporations and wealthy folks. He's for it but he thinks it would have a better effect on the economy if it were much smaller. This is me trying to reconstruct what he said: "A tax cut can spur investment in new businesses and new jobs but only if it's permanent. This one is so lopsided that you just know it's going to get whittled down and rolled-back somewhat just as soon as the Democrats get back into power. Ergo, less long-term investment."
That makes a certain amount of sense to me. So does the concern my friend in the drugstore has about too much instability in his life. I'd like to see the uncertainty end but I'm uncertain as to how and when that might happen.