As I scramble to organize documents to make sure not to lose health insurance coverage– I am realizing the same issues that I wrote about in my thesis, Connective Development. Our state based ‘residency ‘ framework is outdated. I am in the middle of many states, many existences, and occupations. I’m in transition. I am happy with that. I do not have a permanent address, after many years of having one. I don’t think i’m alone–as the workforce continues its mobility and multi-state existence, our older systems of keeping track are creating too much friction in the system (Drivers licenses, health insurance, jury duty and even taxes).
Frankly, until I have a more permanent home base, i’m do not want to change the legions of documents, and definitely not more than once. With credit cards, it’s ok, i can still do most things digitally, with an ancient address, but it still seems outdated. I have no more utility bills, and i’m mostly working on wifi coverage that is in others names. My drivers license is my old temporary address–at the time i signed, it was still hopeful that i would stay there longer, but my plans changed.
It would be nice to change my address in one place, and have it track thru a number of things. It would be nice to be able to just float a bit more freely between states and have my insurance cover me. It would be nice to have a drivers license and car registration that was a bit more fluid. I would prefer not to have to file multiple partial year tax returns. I would love a US-Pass that could cover all such information. I’d even pay a higher tax rate.
But right now i just want to make sure i have insurance coverage, and i have to be fixed to a state for 6 months, with an address that tracks thru multiple forms of IDs. Just to make these changes is taking days, taking away time from the process of looking for a job…..or finding a permanent home base….