https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/west-virginia-tug-river-obamacare/
That is a very poignant and meloncholy piece.
No comment
I just can’t with these people anymore.
They used to have good paying jobs as coal miners with insurance.
^That they’ve been “promised” are coming back.
I read this yesterday and thought it was like a supplement to “Hillbilly Elegy.”
I couldn’t complete reading it. So, so upsetting and depressing. Shake your head material in so many ways.
Contradictions abound in how people perceive things and the reality, that often for example the people who are often most dependent on the government are among those who most strongly believe the government does nothing for them and that they are supporting ‘everyone else’, in large part because that government support is hidden from them in a maze of subsidies and block grants they don’t see (states that get pretty large support from the federal government for education costs, as an example, often are among those who want to do away for the department of education, to ‘return education to the states’ and so forth). I suspect one of the reasons ACA was treated hostilly by people who benefitted from it is that they believed that they had to pay for ACA, while they (whoever they is, the undeserving poor, etc) are ‘getting it for free’, probably referring to an extent to the extension of medicaid).
What you really are running into is human nature, which often is predicated around rationalizing around situations which often includes denying that ‘you’ are part of the ‘they’.
West Virginian here - this is nothing new to us. Certain parts of our state will always be this way, although it has gotten worse in recent years. It has to be said, though, that a lot of people in these areas are their own worst enemies. So many laid-off coal miners refuse to retrain for anything because they’re used to making making $75,000.00 a year with a high school diploma, if that, and won’t take anything that pays less. That’s why they’re still there. Those willing to face facts and make hard decisions retrain and get out.
I consider myself a moderate liberal but sometimes I find it hard to sympathize. I find it especially ironic that the very thing they hate so much - Obamacare - is what they’re terrified of losing now that their hero Donald Trump is in office. So many of them voted against their own self-interest for a variety of reasons and they’re going to suffer even more for it. The facts are out there but they refuse to see them - and many don’t have the education to do so.
Also, I’d like to point out that my S2, 21, is one of the people who stands to lose Medicaid coverage. He attends community college part-time and works a fast-food job. My husband is retired from the WV National Guard and we have Tricare, which doesn’t cover children past age 21 unless they’re full-time students. He applied for Medicaid and I was shocked when he qualified, so I guess I wasn’t fully informed of the facts either.
@sylvan8798 - why no comment?
I have relatives in W. Va who used to work in the coal mines and made a good living at it. (They are retired now). But to just say ‘move away’ isn’t really the answer. They’ve lived on property that has been in the family for hundreds of years. It’s their heritage and they don’t want to move anywhere else.
I don’t think they voted against their self-interest. They want the coal jobs back. As you said, coal paid well and had good benefits.
If you believe the coal mines are coming back, I have a bridge to sell you.
Not only are the coal mines not coming back, but these same people voted for those who are going to take away their retirement health care and their pensions.
http://www.npr.org/2017/02/25/517181428/benefits-in-jeopardy-for-retired-coal-miners
I want my 16yo waistline back, but it has about as much chance of a return as those coal jobs.
@TatinG, coal isn’t going to “come back” any more than the horse and carriage. It’s naive for anyone to believe that it will, although I agree that you also can’t expect for masses of people to up and move, and leave behind the land they’ve lived on as you say, for a hundred years. The solution is to bring in new industries into the area and retrain the workforce. It’s doable. But it takes honesty, political will and investment, none of which appear on the horizon at the moment.
A lot of people vote based on unrealistic expectations. But the perceived ‘war on coal’ resonated in coal country. Maybe W. Virginia’s shale deposits will lead to a bigger boom in natural gas drilling blue collar jobs that could make up for the devastating losses in coal jobs. But you can’t blame people who are unemployed who used to make 70-80K per year for hoping against hope that those jobs will come back.
“A lot of people vote based on unrealistic expectations. But the perceived ‘war on coal’ resonated in coal country. Maybe W. Virginia’s shale deposits will lead to a bigger boom in natural gas drilling blue collar jobs that could make up for the devastating losses in coal jobs. But you can’t blame people who are unemployed who used to make 70-80K per year for hoping against.”
Of course I can blame them. It is not some big secret that coal jobs are not coming back (and neither are steel mills or textile plants.) They chose to believe the con instead of someone who was telling them of the need to be retrained for other work. They were warned what was going to happen. They put themselves in the situation they are going to be faced with. I have zero sympathy for them.
Let them go and pick crops in California or Florida and Georgia for minimum wage. Or pluck chicken feathers in poultry factories. I understand there are going to be a lot of these jobs opening up.
No, you can’t blame them but you can blame those who don’t try to do what they can in the meantime, and yes, that sometimes means moving away, at least temporarily. My mother’s people were Irish immigrants who had nothing, just like these people. They left everything they had for a new life in a completely different country and never went back. And they were willing to work service jobs until something better opened up.They knew it was the price they had to pay. And they sent three of their four kids to college and one to medical school.
All my ancestors came here from their home countries to provide a better life for their descendants. They endured significant hardship to do so, yes doing service jobs, nannying, whatever it took. All the kids and grandkids and beyond got higher educations and jobs. It was a leap of faith for them to come over as well.
20% of the US population is on Medicaid, including 30% of Californians. This is indeed a huge burden and just cutting them off as it appears the proposal will do doesn’t seem like a great solution, just moves the problem to hospital ERs.
Lots of jobs are being lost to automation and “efficiency.” Who should be retrained for what and who decides? How is it decided? Who pays for the retraining?
I live in the motor city area. Almost everyone I knew growing up had connections to the car industry. Same with my dad and his dad and his dad (we go back about 4 generations in Detroit).
The car jobs aren’t coming back. But instead of recognizing that and trying to get new skills, many people prefer to just sit in the bar and complain about it. It drives me up a wall.
A certain group of politicians thrive on lying to these people and tell them that the jobs will come back when they know darned well they are not. Those politicians make my blood boil and I consider them the lowest of the low.
Or in solar and wind energy:
http://fortune.com/2017/02/21/donald-trump-jobs-coal-mining-solar-energy/