Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Let This Be A Warning To You

My friend Z is doing amazingly well, considering. She is complying with her oncologists. But now that the radiation is burning her throat, and the chemo is making her queazy, the doctors are prescribing drugs that will alleaviate these problems. But Z doesn't believe in Western medicine and when it came time to sign up for Medicare she assumed that she would never get sick enough to ever need the part A, B and D of Medicare coverage. Now she needs them all and the enrollment period won't come around again until November. It is part D that would have paid for her drugs. It is part D that would make a drug that costs $150 at most $3.50. I audibly gasped when she told me that she didn't have part D. I couldn't help myself. I said, "But you need part D." She was furious and shouted, "Don't tell me what I should have done. That doesn't help me now." And of course she's right. Now that it's too late, it doesn't help to tell her what she should have done.

If you're healthy, you never think you're going to need insurance and prescription drug coverage. And if you're young you never think your going to get ill. But everyone needs insurance. That is why the healthcare debate is so terribly important. We need a public option. Please call your Congressional Representative and lobby for a public option for healthcare. We need you healthy. We need you paying attention to the issues that will make a difference in all our lives.

We are not allowed to drive a car without insurance and we don't think twice about that. But we are so careless when it comes to insurance for our own health. It should be mandatory that everyone is covered with health insurance.

23 comments:

Dr. Zaius said...

If only we had some kind of universal coverage... ;o)

Commander Zaius said...

Get this, I knew a fella that was about a crazy a Biblethumper as the came figuring that the Rapture would happen any minute and whose favorite conversations was who he thought the Antichrist was and when he would declare himself to the world.

This dude lived in a rural section of South Carolina and figuring the big minority bogeyman would attack him at any minute he kept a loaded shotgun behind the seat of his truck.

Driving down a bumpy road one day the shotgun somehow fell and discharged into the lower portion of one of his legs. As he described it only a few strands of fresh kept the thing attached to him.

With no health insurance at all, he was a part-time preacher, all his medical bills and rehabilitation fell into one of those areas I don't remember how he explained it was paid for.

Moral of this far too long comment is it takes a lot to convince an idiot that loaded guns are not a good idea and that government run health care where everyone is covered ain't a bad idea.

boukman70 said...

OK, Beach Bum makes me feel like I wasn't being paranoid when I wouldn't drive off 85 when going through S. Carolina.

Other than that, I'm totally with you. My wife and I are still trying to figure out the letter we're going to write to our Congressman and Senators. I'll keep you posted, though.

Commander Zaius said...

boukman I know quite a few people living off I-85 in South Carolina, my brothers live in that area, and the family trees for a lot of those people go straight up with few branches. Know what I mean?

Utah Savage said...

Dr. Z, nice to see you. Yes, I agree.

Beach, terrific story. Ramble on, as it's usually not only smart, but entertaining as well. Nice way to make a point.

Utah Savage said...

Boukman70, good to see you. I'm happy to hear I have another activist friend. I'm writing, signing petitions, calling, and in any way I can make my congressmen to listen. Even if it's only to note that some of us care passionately that we need a public option at the very least.

Ed Darrell said...

Thanks for the post. Nothing has persuasive power like the facts, to those who are genuinely concerned about America and Americans.

PENolan said...

There's a rally for Health Care in Central Park this weekend organized by Obama.02. I'll be there.

ps: love the hair cut.

anita said...

What you say is so very true. And I hope people LISTEN.

My mother never gave me any advice that a young girl would (or should?) expect from mothers, like .... say, how to wear make up or flirt with boys, or, even how to cook or clean.

But there were TWO things my mother never, ever stopped drilling into my thick skull from Day 1:

1. Use moisturizer every single day.

and ...

2. Never go without health insurance, even if your're 24 and healthy as can be. Pay your health insurance premiums before you pay your rent.

So, the end result is that at 49 I have no wrinkles in my face, not even around my eyes; and when I got hit with cancer, the only costs I have had to deal with were the annoying co-pays, which were minimal.

It would have been quite easy when I went to work for myself to let the health insurance go ... it's a big chunk o' money every month having an individual policy ... but I had my Mom's voice lingering in my brain. And I'm VERY glad I did.

Utah Savage said...

Ed, nice to see you here.

PEN, I'm sorry I've been absent from visiting, but I posted at least 7 chapters yesterday.

Nan said...

Sadly, an all too common story. We're all prone to think lightning will never hit us until the day we get zapped and realize too late our hair is on fire.

Randal Graves said...

I don't see how we'll pay for this without being able to bomb fewer nations, but it's obvious that none of you have thought of that.

Anonymous said...

..."It should be mandatory that everyone is covered with health insurance."...

Mandatory? At what point do your mandates stop? Solyent Green? 1984? When does our benevolent and kindly government stop mandating?

Oh, just this one more mandate?

Commander Zaius said...

Randal, we can cut costs and still have health care by bombing nations far closer to home.

Utah Savage said...

Angry White Guy, don't you have a mandate to insure your car, house, boat? What the fuck's so strange that there should be a mandate that you insure yourself? Otherwise when you get cancer, we will all have to pick up the tab for your treatment.

Anita, I'm so glad your mother was smart enough to give you that good advise. I envy you that lineless lovely face.

Randal, yes, let's just bomb in our own hemisphere, if we feel the need to bomb. It is so very fun. And if we don't drop those bombs somewhere who will provide for the poor armaments manufacturers?

Anonymous said...

You didn't answer my question, and throwing fuck in there doesn't change that.

quin browne said...

i only have a & b, i don't qualify for 'd'. my supplement insurance is fubar, so, i'm simply doing without some of my meds right now... i can't afford $900 a month (the uncovered cost).

have her look at mutual of omaha... i am calling them tomorrow to see about supplemental insurance, and i understand you don't have to wait until november.

i wish her the best of luck..

quin browne said...

ps the one insurance policy offer i actually laughed out loud about?

six months after i was diagnosed with cancer, i had a mailing from a company--to buy cancer coverage insurance--with the note if you currently have cancer or it's been less than five years since your diagnosis... you didn't qualify.

fucktards.

Utah Savage said...

Angry White Guy, I thought your question was so over the top, it didn't deserve a really serious answer, or dissertation at this point in a long on-going conversation about my friend's cancer, my disability, our poverty, my bankruptcy when United Health Care decided they would double my $500 a month premium to a grand when I got the diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Then, unable to work and unable to recieve the therapy and meds, over $1,000 a month in Rxs, I went off meds and ended up in the hospital. A two week stay in a psych ward is pricy. When I got out I might as well have been lobotomized, so medicated, so depressed. Want to go on? Can you understand why I think we need at least a public option in any healthcare reform? You may not need it now, but if you ever do, come back and thank me then. In the meantime, why do you insist that what you don't need, I shouldn't have?

Anonymous said...

I never said you shouldn't have an option, I asked why should it be mandatory? I asked at what point does making things mandatory stop. Just how much mandatory government control is sufficient?

I'm not judging you, I have no bases or right to judge you.

I Withdraw my question.

anita said...

During the primaries, Hillary was very vocal about making health care mandatory. Elizabeth Edwards is for mandatory coverage as well. Obama's been a wuss about mandatory coverage. If it's not mandatory, then what's the purpose? One of the main points is that one of the reasons costs are rising so steeply for insurance coverage is that those of us who have coverage are subsidizing the ones who do not. And, I imagine, this "subsidy" also masks a higher profit margin for the insurance companies, better to err on the high side, if you know what I mean.

I know you withdrew your question Angry White Man, but I just wanted to say that I, personally, do not want to subsidize your quadruple bypass surgery or your cholesteral meds, I have enough on my plate as it is.

boukman70 said...

Anita, I think there's a very good reason to be against mandates if they follow the Massachusetts plan. Their mandate has blown the state's budget out of the water; they charge people who still can't afford insurance $900 a year for not having it; and last week, Mass. has reported that they're about to drop 130,000 off their insurance rolls because the state can no longer afford it. Now, if they want to do mandates AND cap what insurers can pay, I'd be willing to give that a shot. But if they're going to do like Mass., it will only lead to disaster. And right now, I'm really questioning whether or not any of our elected officials have any courage at all.

Mauigirl said...

So true, I agree. I once let my coverage lapse between jobs since I was only 23 - and wouldn't you know it, that was the year I had appendicitis! You just never know.