About 15 percent of the U.S. population is now over 65. The federal government estimates that over 10 percent of these senior citizens are victims of elder abuse: four percent physically assaulted, three percent neglected, three percent financially exploited, and one-two percent subjected to psychological abuse. Delaware, believed by most Biden critics to be a particularly corrupt one-party state, ranks in the middle of states for abuse in nursing homes, with only 15-25 percent of its nursing homes judged to rank at the bottom for treatment of the elderly. Biden will be able to afford private nurses and doctors to allow him to live out his days in the $3 million beach house he bought in cash.
Now that Biden-Harris has been replaced by Harris-Walz, Democrats have an ad out in which middle-aged daughters dwell on how Rush Limbaugh and FOX News stole their fathers from them and destroyed their relationships with daddy. More elder abuse in cutting off never-to-be grandparents from their never-to-be-parents children. But they offer a solution: Tim Walz can be the daddy who will now love them as they are, single, childless, blue-haired, tattooed, and pierced. (This ad is almost plagiarism of a forgotten 2015 documentary The Brainwashing of My Dad.)
Recently I discovered a kind of elder abuse coming from the political right. An older man, I developed a sharp foot pain. In my mind I pictured a stripe running along the edge of the underside of my foot from the meaty pad just before the joint of the big toe, all the way back to the ankle, and it felt like the “stripe” actually wrapped around my ankle.
AARP claims that a fifth of older people experience foot pain, though often because of wearing bad shoes or carrying around too much weight, which can affect all ages. But also because of accumulated wear and tear, arthritis, or loss of bone density. The orthotics market globally (shoe inserts and other devices) is around $4 billion, with 40 percent of that in the United States. Podiatry is a $7 billion market in the United States.
I’m a daily listener of Washington, D.C.’s flagship conservative radio station, WMAL, which carried Rush Limbaugh until his passing, used to run Sean Hannity, and still carries Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro, as well as a hilarious lineup of locally-grown (though now nationally syndicated) political humorists and commentators. There are long-term advertisers: local real estate practices, a carpet cleaning business, a charity that accepts old cars, and something called The Good Feet Store, whose ads I’d heard for years, including interviews with its founder, and which I had assumed is a local business.
It’s no longer local. It was sold a few years ago to a private equity company, which sells franchises. The founder, Matt Coleman, now spends his time flipping luxury properties in Malibu and elsewhere. There are around 200 Good Feet Stores, mainly in highly-populated areas of the U.S.
I went to a Good Feet store in Virginia, one of those wealthy blue counties full of lobbyists and Senior Executive Service and political appointees. You have to make an appointment. Nice salespeople make a long pitch, never naming prices. They take a kind of fingerprint of your foot. Still no price info. While they go into a stock room to find the orthotic inserts their computer-assisted diagnosis program thinks will work for you, they let you rest your feet on a vibrating rubber and metal footstool akin to those vibrating and massaging chairs nail salons have for people having a pedicure.
Finally they bring your inserts. These inserts, unlike the soft gelatinous Dr. Scholl’s inserts you’d buy at a drug store, make you maybe half an inch taller. The salesperson also promises a contract under which if lost or accidentally damaged your inserts will be replaced. Finally, you’re told the price.
The basic package, mainly just the inserts, is $1200+. The mid-price package, inserts plus some compression socks and an additional layer of thin, anti-bacterial cover inserts, a little over $2000. The deluxe package, where you get the vibrating foot stool is just over $3000. The Good Feet Store does offer financing. No form of insurance covers their products.
If you don’t immediately buy, the salesperson asks what’s holding you back. I liked my salesman, took his card and said I’d get back to him.
The next day I made an appointment at a podiatry clinic in McLean, Virginia. My appointment, including a doctor having me explain what I was feeling, a visual inspection of my foot, and an X-ray of my feet, was completely covered by insurance. I’ve no idea what it costs. A physician’s assistant took a detailed series of photos or scans of my foot, like the 3D photos dentists take of your teeth before they make crowns or implants.
I ordered orthotic inserts made just for my feet, which took around two weeks to have fabricated. As at the Good Feet Store, insurance didn’t cover the actual orthotic inserts. Which were a little over $600. This doesn’t include the vibrating foot stool, but they’re available on Amazon for under $300.