Most people would agree that medical insurance any more is a mess.
Deductibles are sky high, co-pays are outrageous, anybody with ‘pre existing’ problems has MAJOR problems.
It is, plain and simply, a mess.
Some of those in the medical profession saw this coming. I’ve only been a nurse since 1996 and I was young(er), getting ready to get married, had a million things to do, see, plan, think about. I remember hearing the rumblings then. But I didn’t pay them much mind. A lot of people didn’t-some were in the medical field like me, and a lot of people outside the medical field, I’d imagine.
It wasn’t until a few later later that I started paying more attention, and by then, it was already worse. I was even a little surprise at how bad some of it had gotten.
The wiser medical professionals around me weren’t surprised.
They’d seen the writing on the wall.
It makes sense, looking back. Many of them had already been dealing with the small problems that hadn’t ever been problems before. Then those problems became bigger problems. And new problems that had never been problems cropped up. The medical professionals talked about it-I can remember one nurse I knew, he talked until he was blue in the face trying to educate me. I listened…some. It was what he said that eventually made me pay more attention.
A lot of people, though, unless they were directly affected, they didn’t realize there was a problem, and if they did…wel, they had good insurance-they had no co-pay and their prescriptions cost maybe $5. Since the ‘problems’ didn’t affect them, they didn’t pay much attention.
But now that problem has grown, I’d say. It’s affecting more and more every day. We’ve got ‘ok’ insurance and I say that with a grain of salt. It could be better-our deductible bites, and some of the drugs I need for asthma and my headaches? Painful. But it could be worse-we could have no prescription drug coverage, and that’s the case for many.
It’s growing, it’s getting worse…and it’s a problem some people, namely the medical professionals, have seen coming for quite a while. They were on the inside, right? They were the ones calling and fighting with insurance companies, writing the letters, over and over…What started as a trickle became a flood and now even those who have what they call decent insurance are still appalled at the bills they are stuck with. Some people can’t get insurance, period, and some need it and can’t afford.
Now-lets not take this into politics and all that-that’s not where I’m aiming. This is just a parallel…of sorts.
Years ago, the medical professionals saw a problem coming-medical insurance, insurance coverage, all of it. I don’t remember the start of it, but I can tell you I spent plenty of time in the day job dealing with insurance problems that never should have become a problem in the first place.
The publishing industry is seeing a problem. It’s piracy.
A lot of people, both readers and authors alike, don’t see it affecting them as much, or at all. And right now, maybe as a big picture view, it doesn’t.
But here’s the thing, that big picture is made up of small pictures-authors, booksellers, publishers, agents, cover artists, etc. And as things in the publishing world shift and sway and try to cope with the problems being brought on piracy, those small pictures begin to shift. How many shifts before that big picture gets changed on a major level? Before that trickle becomes a flood?