{"product_id":"no-85","title":"No. 85","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"mt-14 mb-24 relative\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"px-4 sm:px-0 body-copy-frame\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"mt-14 mb-24 relative\"\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"px-4 sm:px-0 body-copy-frame\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003c!-- wp:paragraph --\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan class=\"first-selection\"\u003eThe only guarantee\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ein today’s America, it seems, is that you’ll pay more for less. That’s if you receive anything at all: A study published recently by the Commonwealth Fund found that one out of every five Americans was denied coverage for doctor-recommended care in 2025. The\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ereported that same year that the five largest home insurers didn’t pay out on 44 percent of claims. In advanced modernity, wrote Ulrich Beck forty years ago, the production of wealth is accompanied by the production of risk—most importantly, radioactivity, toxins, and pollutants, all of which induce irreversible harm despite generally remaining invisible. The present-day consequences of industrial society have quite spectacular effects, however, intensifying the hurricanes and fueling the wildfires that insurers use as excuses not to offer home coverage at all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn these cases, as the contributors to “Over Under” show, fortune might favor only those brave (and psychopathic) enough to bet on the flames consuming their domiciles via Polymarket; as\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/salvos\/infinite-hedge-hill\" rel=\"noopener\" role=\"link\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eDavid Hill\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ewrites, prediction markets have been trying to skirt regulators by selling themselves not as sportsbooks but as insurance. Of course, companies of the latter ilk are themselves in need of greater regulation, per\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/salvos\/i-might-need-security-baker\" rel=\"noopener\" role=\"link\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eMadeleine Baker\u003c\/a\u003e’s history of the insurance industry’s frankly reckless profit seeking.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSuch hedging takes money, however, that most Americans don’t seem to have. A Federal Reserve survey conducted last October found that only 63 percent of adults could cover a $400 expense in cash.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/salvos\/paid-phones-kolitz\" rel=\"noopener\" role=\"link\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eDaniel Kolitz\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ereports on how the poor rely on payday apps to subsidize everyday essentials from groceries to rent. (Our phones have colonized both our finances and our sense of humor, as\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/salvos\/no-but-m-hogan\" rel=\"noopener\" role=\"link\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eDennis M. Hogan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eargues in an essay about the decline of improv comedy.) In this issue’s exhibit,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/odds-and-ends\/pure-life-woerpel\" rel=\"noopener\" role=\"link\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eKurt Woerpel\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003erecounts how often the only thing keeping needy patients from medical bankruptcy are doctors willing to stick their necks out. Unfortunately, given funerary costs, being dead can be more expensive than staying alive, to paraphrase the mother in\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/stories\/my-mothers-mothers-death-nathan-west\" rel=\"noopener\" role=\"link\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eAdrian Nathan West\u003c\/a\u003e’s short story; elsewhere in fiction,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/stories\/the-battle-hymn-of-the-republic-cajoleas\" rel=\"noopener\" role=\"link\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eJimmy Cajoleas\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ewrites of a prom date with an odd preexisting condition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe nobler gambles today have less clear payoffs.\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/salvos\/the-reluctant-migrant-cornell\" rel=\"noopener\" role=\"link\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eS. C. Cornell\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003easks whether Marisol, a Mexican woman shot in the head by the Border Patrol while migrating into this country, can exact something like justice from the American legal system. Can American fiction ever escape the high-low conundrum disparaged by scholar and critic Leslie Fiedler, on whose career and influence\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/outbursts\/its-a-boys-boys-boys-world-hu\" rel=\"noopener\" role=\"link\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eZoë Hu\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003ereflects? Will the humpback chub, an endangered fish at the heart of conflicting environmental concerns in a changing Colorado River, be saved by any of the solutions detailed by\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/thebaffler.com\/salvos\/living-water-sanders\" rel=\"noopener\" role=\"link\" target=\"_blank\"\u003eAsh Sanders\u003c\/a\u003e?\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003eMaybe\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eis the most hopeful answer one could give to each of these,\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cem\u003elikely not\u003c\/em\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003eperhaps the truer. Still, probably worth the risk.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003c!-- \/wp:paragraph --\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePublished:\u003c\/strong\u003e September 2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003ePages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 136\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"The Baffler","offers":[{"title":"Print Issue","offer_id":45451387371543,"sku":"Baf85Print","price":14.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"eBook (E-Reader)","offer_id":45451387404311,"sku":"Baf85MOBI","price":6.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"eBook (Tablet)","offer_id":45451387437079,"sku":"Baf85EPUB","price":6.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0377\/7585\/files\/b85-cover-mockup.png?v=1788232447","url":"https:\/\/store.thebaffler.com\/products\/no-85","provider":"The Baffler ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}