As I approached early retirement at age 55, a dilemma plagued me. Because I had worked for 21+ years at Elmcrest Childrens Center, I was fully vested in their private retirement pension. However, the situation over ACA (Obamacare) and laws of NYS combined with my worsening health put me to the threat of financial ruin.

As it was up until that date, I was a medicaid recipient and making just enough to survive, but the added pension now made it possible for me to be kicked off medicaid and out on the open market. Yet, the pension was not quite enough to be a complete and steady replacement income.

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I had considered not taking the pension and waiting until age 62 by which time waiting any longer brings no more benefit. That would be the year 2023 and around the same time as the USA Pluto return. Agreeing with William Stickevers over the US financial situation, and running the numbers on the pension alone (and life expectancy age of 69) it was clear that I should take it now.

That is what has led to my current dilemma. So this required me to work a little bit, but not too much. I decided to close down the counseling part of my business in order to keep the astrology software business running.

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The situation that I was trying to avoid is having an adjusted gross income of over $23,001 per yr which would place me on the open market. This in turn would also mean that my pension would go only to pay for health insurance since the level of care I would need is about $10K/yr which also doesn’t cover out of pocket and the legal fine print which can also cost tens of thousands of dollars for those things that are not covered. What most people don’t realize is that ACA still doesn’t protect from medical bankruptcy because it doesn’t cover everything.

There are excuses that can allow medical providers to run up bills in the $100K+ range helping poster boys like Martin Shkreli make billions. So I either had to make the jump from about $20K/yr in business to about $200K/yr, or shut it down. Otherwise I can be on the hook for a 6 or 7 figure medical bill for making over $23,001 in any given year. Since this business has never really made much above $20K annually even when working 60+ hours/week, the answer was obvious; don’t try to make $200K which is theoretically possible but practically and demonstrably not possible.

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This is the reason why I have not pressed for what could be a very promising project that would finally put me in the middle class because that could lead to being in massive medical debt. I have diabetes, Afib and other lesser problems.

The irony is that by appearances I look very strong. I used to weigh 330 lbs (former super heavyweight power lifter) and am now down in the mid 250’s. My physical stature is about where Lou Ferrigno is now. Nobody would ever guess that I was sick. I’m on about 7 different prescribed medications for my conditions. I suspect that is largely because of the way the medical system deals with these issues and the profit incentives of big pharma.

(me back in peak condition)

Dr. Edward Ellis (homeopathic physician) has been a partial solution to get me off of these drugs as he is familiar with my work in the software field and has offered to take my case pro bono. He was involved in Project Hindsight since the early days. But until I have the time to read the roughly 2 million pages of legal fine print to make sure that I can’t be on the hook for massive medical debt, I don’t see a way to push my software projects forward without the risk of death for failure to pay my medical bills.

May 17, 2017

This was a turning point. I ended up in the hospital and the doctors said I was in Afib (atrial fibulation). This condition isn't all that serious, but it can be uncomfortable. I was in this rhythm for almost a day and was in observation and the doctors said that within 48 hours they would have to put me under to stop my heart to try to kick it back into sinus rhythm. There's a small chance one doesn't come back once it gets to this point but a short while later it went back to normal.

If we had single payer and covered all possible situations, this would not be an issue and you would have seen many new improvements in Delphic Oracle XPF. As it is now, I’m forced to hold back.

The grand logos (what Schmidt says would be the single largest statement about your life and analogous to an epitaph on your tombstone) by the universal hermetics for me might be “carried most knowledge to the grave because the world could not hear”. For some reason I have been cursed with the ability to understand and helpless to make a difference.

Going for broke?

So now I figure out I have a complicating factor; involvement in cryptocurrencies. I had just invested a small amount of my pension into a few different cryptos a few months before my Afib attack. Trying to be careful and responsible has just made matters worse. I knew enough not to cash out to create taxable events (I had regarded this as my social security insurance in the wake of government recklessness).

This is the reason I think voluntarism is the best answer to our social ills. Forcing anyone to buy anything such as ACA isn't the answer. If you have to force your ideas on anyone else, those ideas are no good. So now I hope to work on open source crypto projects. It's the most important development of our lifetimes and the only real hope that the average person has for a better future.

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Donations (public bitcoin address):

3FwxQsa7gmQ7c1GXJyvDTqmT6CM3mMEgcv

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