8 hours Ago
Dear Congressman Himes, I am writing to you as one of your constituents to urge you to aggressively support improved Medicare for All , commonly known as single-payer healthcare. My girlfriend earns a gross salary of $65,000 a year. Her take-home pay, after taxes and health insurance deductions, is only $40,200 a year.
She doesn’t have a platinum or even a gold health plan. This is an employer-provided silver plan, paid for through paycheck deductions. Despite us shopping aggressively for the best deal, her plan barely covers anything.
Her premium is over $400 a month. Which brings me to my next point: taxes. I am a big believer in civic virtue.
I think taxes are the price we pay for civilization. But how is it even remotely possible that she’s paying over $1,200 a month in taxes? And for what? What do we, as taxpayers, actually get? We don’t get free college. I personally have $300,000 in student loan debt, and I didn’t go to Yale.
I went to a public state university in Utah. I take responsibility for some of that debt, but why should anyone in the richest country on Earth need to take out student loans just to get an education—especially while paying $1,200 a month in taxes? We don’t have universal healthcare. My girlfriend still has to pay a health insurance company over $400 a month.
Even then, they still send her a bill every time she goes for a check-up, a procedure, or even fills a prescription. This has to end. If we’re paying this much in taxes , we should actually get something for it.
We need Medicare for All and taxpayer-funded higher education. These are the things that matter to us. We’re hurting.
We work hard, yet we can barely make ends meet. Our combined gross income is $85,000 a year, but we’re scraping by in a small two-bedroom apartment that costs $2,900 a month where the heat constantly goes out. I have a master’s degree in finance and have applied for over 800 jobs in the last six months.
Help. Us. Todd Derek Thomas lives in Connecticut.
