To Joe the Plumber
Hello Joe the Plumber,
I'm Shannon the Marketing Communications Director. I've worked for several companies in a variety of industries over the past 25 years. I couldn't afford to buy any of them because each was very successful and had anywhere from 30 to 20,000 employees. I had stock in some of them; but sadly that didn't pan out as an investment. Even the best of them (still in existence) has crashed this week.
Five years ago I had to take a time-out from my career to care for my parents who were suffering from a variety of diseases - Parkinson's, congestive heart failure, diabetes and dementia, to name a few. Sadly, in their mid-80's they could no longer fend for themselves. They couldn't drive, buy groceries, pay their bills, manage their daily medications, bathe without help, even walk independently. I quit my job and moved from Colorado to California with my accommodating husband in order to help them because they have been great parents.
While I was out of work caring for my folks, my husband took a job with a small constrution company that didn't provide health insurance. No big deal. We decided to buy our own health insurance. Unfortunately, that proved impossible because my husband had minor surgery 25 years earlier to remove a small melanoma and I had a recent endoscopy to mitigate a little reflux issue. NO company would insure us because these procedures were on our record. We were incredulous, and angry.
My sister, an entrepreneur, stepped in to help us. She was able to cover me on her small company's health insurance policy because I was doing marketing communications work for her. My husband and I were able to get insurance for the bargain price of $800 per month. According to John McCain's plan, if we had the $5,000 per year credit to get our own insurance, we would only have owed an additional $4,600 per year more than the zero dollars we paid before I left the traditional work force to care for my aging parents.
Joe, today my husband and I are selling our wonderful little dream home in order to avoid foreclosure. You see, we invested the money from the sale of our home in Colorado with money my mom received from selling an investment property here in CA, in order to buy a home relatively close to where my parents lived. Turns out that my parents lost all their money by over-leveraging their other properties in order to live a high-end lifestyle - waterfront home in a gated community, 50' power yacht, yacht club membership, trips around the world, fabulous weddings for my siblings and me. I don't begrudge them their lifestyle. I'm just angry they didn't plan to fund even a SIMPLE lifestyle into their 80's. Worse, I didn't even inquire about what they had planned before it was too late to do anything about it. They ran out of money two years ago.
My sister and I are now paying all of our parents' expenses. We are losing our assets, one by one, in order to preserve a semblance of our parents' lifestyle. It's not as simple as telling them they're out of money and getting them on MediCal. My dad, a staunch Republican, has a big piece of mountain ranch property that has been for sale for several years - but it just can't be sold, for a number of reasons having to do with zoning, water rights and taxes. He owes a gazillion dollars in taxes for the sale of a previous property, the sale of which went to pay other taxes and bills. This year, my sister was forced to sell her home and my husband and I are now forced to sell our home because of my parents' debts.
I'm ready for a change in Washington, Joe. Today my husband and I work for small companies. His company has less than 10 employees. Mine has around 2,000. We both work VERY hard at ages 56 and 58 and there is NO way either of us will ever be able to retire. We saved our money for many years, invested in 401K's, the stock market and our homes. Sadly, our credit rating is now very low because we had to use our credit cards to pay for the high costs of caring for parents who ran out of money. Every day we are faced with having to choose between paying for groceries, gas for the cars we need for work, mortgage payments, cell phone bills, medical co-pays, cable TV or credit card debts. Our home is for sale. We are "rightsizing" and selling dozens of things we love in order to pay bills.
The good news? We don't feel like victims. We know we made our own choices and learned from them. Today we have health insurance, thanks to my new job. That insurance paid for huge expenses related to my husband's mini-stroke this summer. And it will pay for his quadruple by-pass in the next year or so.
Joe, I know you deserve an opporutnity to buy the company you have worked for over the past several years. I want you to be able to do that. And I want you to understand that someone like me who has invested nearly 30 years working for companies that I cannot buy deserves to earn my own paycheck and health insurance - and not get taxed on that health insurance. I deserve to plan for my old age in a way that my parents did not - meaning that I will probably be working for companies I do not own, till then end of my life.
Thank you for letting me voice my point of view to the entire country. I voted for George Bush eight years ago. This year, I'm voting for Barack Obama.
With best regards,
Shannon Ingram
I'm Shannon the Marketing Communications Director. I've worked for several companies in a variety of industries over the past 25 years. I couldn't afford to buy any of them because each was very successful and had anywhere from 30 to 20,000 employees. I had stock in some of them; but sadly that didn't pan out as an investment. Even the best of them (still in existence) has crashed this week.
Five years ago I had to take a time-out from my career to care for my parents who were suffering from a variety of diseases - Parkinson's, congestive heart failure, diabetes and dementia, to name a few. Sadly, in their mid-80's they could no longer fend for themselves. They couldn't drive, buy groceries, pay their bills, manage their daily medications, bathe without help, even walk independently. I quit my job and moved from Colorado to California with my accommodating husband in order to help them because they have been great parents.
While I was out of work caring for my folks, my husband took a job with a small constrution company that didn't provide health insurance. No big deal. We decided to buy our own health insurance. Unfortunately, that proved impossible because my husband had minor surgery 25 years earlier to remove a small melanoma and I had a recent endoscopy to mitigate a little reflux issue. NO company would insure us because these procedures were on our record. We were incredulous, and angry.
My sister, an entrepreneur, stepped in to help us. She was able to cover me on her small company's health insurance policy because I was doing marketing communications work for her. My husband and I were able to get insurance for the bargain price of $800 per month. According to John McCain's plan, if we had the $5,000 per year credit to get our own insurance, we would only have owed an additional $4,600 per year more than the zero dollars we paid before I left the traditional work force to care for my aging parents.
Joe, today my husband and I are selling our wonderful little dream home in order to avoid foreclosure. You see, we invested the money from the sale of our home in Colorado with money my mom received from selling an investment property here in CA, in order to buy a home relatively close to where my parents lived. Turns out that my parents lost all their money by over-leveraging their other properties in order to live a high-end lifestyle - waterfront home in a gated community, 50' power yacht, yacht club membership, trips around the world, fabulous weddings for my siblings and me. I don't begrudge them their lifestyle. I'm just angry they didn't plan to fund even a SIMPLE lifestyle into their 80's. Worse, I didn't even inquire about what they had planned before it was too late to do anything about it. They ran out of money two years ago.
My sister and I are now paying all of our parents' expenses. We are losing our assets, one by one, in order to preserve a semblance of our parents' lifestyle. It's not as simple as telling them they're out of money and getting them on MediCal. My dad, a staunch Republican, has a big piece of mountain ranch property that has been for sale for several years - but it just can't be sold, for a number of reasons having to do with zoning, water rights and taxes. He owes a gazillion dollars in taxes for the sale of a previous property, the sale of which went to pay other taxes and bills. This year, my sister was forced to sell her home and my husband and I are now forced to sell our home because of my parents' debts.
I'm ready for a change in Washington, Joe. Today my husband and I work for small companies. His company has less than 10 employees. Mine has around 2,000. We both work VERY hard at ages 56 and 58 and there is NO way either of us will ever be able to retire. We saved our money for many years, invested in 401K's, the stock market and our homes. Sadly, our credit rating is now very low because we had to use our credit cards to pay for the high costs of caring for parents who ran out of money. Every day we are faced with having to choose between paying for groceries, gas for the cars we need for work, mortgage payments, cell phone bills, medical co-pays, cable TV or credit card debts. Our home is for sale. We are "rightsizing" and selling dozens of things we love in order to pay bills.
The good news? We don't feel like victims. We know we made our own choices and learned from them. Today we have health insurance, thanks to my new job. That insurance paid for huge expenses related to my husband's mini-stroke this summer. And it will pay for his quadruple by-pass in the next year or so.
Joe, I know you deserve an opporutnity to buy the company you have worked for over the past several years. I want you to be able to do that. And I want you to understand that someone like me who has invested nearly 30 years working for companies that I cannot buy deserves to earn my own paycheck and health insurance - and not get taxed on that health insurance. I deserve to plan for my old age in a way that my parents did not - meaning that I will probably be working for companies I do not own, till then end of my life.
Thank you for letting me voice my point of view to the entire country. I voted for George Bush eight years ago. This year, I'm voting for Barack Obama.
With best regards,
Shannon Ingram
posted by Shannon Ingram | 8:04 PM
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