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If the Other Shoe Drops, I Want Medicare
Medicare for All, For Life
There has never been any doubt in my mind that if I face another cancer diagnosis that requires prolonged treatments and has an uncertain outcome, I would rather die than fight it. As an insured American who knows first-hand how quickly a cancer in my body turns to full out trauma in my career and in my finances, I just cannot do it again nor can I ask my husband to risk his own life and security either. It wouldn’t be fair.
More than five weeks ago, when some of my cancer markers were elevated, I began the process of bartering with the insurance company, doing the tests they said would be covered, and then coming all the way back to the start to finally getting the tests my doctors originally ordered. My full diagnosis and treatment considerations have been pending ever since, and that has given me time to think and to remember. Waiting, worrying, and wondering.
It’s not that I believe every cancer is a death sentence. I certainly know that isn’t the case. I am a uterine cancer survivor. My mom is a two time breast cancer survivor. But I am 57 years old now -- old enough to be an expensive liability in our society, especially if I get sick and need care, but too young to be covered by Medicare. If I face a serious illness like cancer again that costs me an awful lot in out-of-pocket expenses not covered by insurance and lost time from making the money we need for survival, I will doom my husband to struggles he doesn’t need and that are not his fault. Bad enough that one of us should be sick, there is certainly no need for me to take him down with the ship.
I am not being morbid or feeling sorry for myself. I am trying to be pragmatic as an American trying to maneuver our broken, for-profit healthcare system. Working class people are expendable; sick working class people are costly.
I am not being morbid or feeling sorry for myself. I am trying to be pragmatic as an American trying to maneuver our broken, for-profit healthcare system. Working class people are expendable; sick working class people are costly. Better to die quickly and get out of the way for another healthier, less expensive worker, and better not to suffer needlessly if the outcome will be lousy anyway.
Perhaps waiting so long and worrying has clouded my thought process a bit, but I know that when my Medicare-covered husband is ill, he feels worried and upset about his health. When I am ill, I worry first about our finances, my job, and then finally about my health – being privately insured creates pressures that are very real and damaging. So as I wait what seems like endless days waiting for the test results again since the initial insurance company denial of care delayed everything, I feel like I need a game plan in order to feel in control at all.
America needs Medicare for all, for life. The program needs to be improved, expanded, and extended to everyone. With all of us paying into one large, public risk pool, every life will matter equally. We are a nation of individuals who believe that equality is to be valued. It is simply wrong to have a healthcare system that dismisses that value and forces people who otherwise would not do so to ponder death as treatment option. In the meantime, I’ll wait and smile and do my job like millions of other Americans do every day hoping we won’t have to choose such a fate.
Medicare for all, for life is not an impossible dream. Support the American Health Security Act of 2011, S915/HR1200, and ask your elected officials to do the same. We can do better for one another. And we must.
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Show AllDear Donna: First of all, I hope that your test results are good ones.
Some years ago I was visiting New York City and due to rents there, the little restaurant I stopped in had tables practically "on top" of one another. Therefore when dining alone, I could not help but overhear conversations at all the nearby tables. It was a very enlightening lunch in that it soon became evident to me that just about everyone was discussing some health malady, some of them serious, over lunch.
To the extent we are what we eat, food for thought factors into that calculus.
Then I thought about the general hours that News comes on... noon, for lunch time viewers, and 6 P.M. for dinner hour (this was before CNN had news running 'round the clock). And there again I noticed this tendency to take in the bad news while one ate/digested the food-stuffs intended for bodily nurture.
Lastly, there is a power to words. So when a person uses verbiage such as "my Cancer," it creates a subliminal form of "onwership." Better to say THE cancer, and rather than relate to something as "my condition," which makes it more real and solid, refer to the item as a temporary impediment the body is wrestling with. This may seem a minor point to you, but in metaphysical circles, it is held with genuine respect. Certainly words are no substitute for healthy life-style choices, but they DO play a role.
Needless to say, I agree with you 100% about a system where everyone is in and covered. It's sadistic, not to mention unimaginable that persons faced with life-threatening dis-ease processes also have to wrestle with insurance company bureaucrats to obtain the treatments they've paid for! Talk about a system that adds insult to injury. Where are the "right to lifer" fetus-fetishists on this one?
Absorbing reports of the the day's atrocities during meals indeed compounds the negative impact.
In addition to avoiding "news" during meals, I rarely listen to radio or scour the internet after 4PM in order to avoid letting the day's atrocities negatively impact the quality of my sleep.
I echo Siouxrose's and raydelcamino's comments, and want to add one more thing: if cancer appears a possibility, an inexpensive and very potent preventative is red clover infusion. You can either buy it by the pound at a reputable online herb store, like Mountain Rose Herbs, or you can collect it yourself. It is often found growing in the yards of people who either have or are at risk of developing cancer... It doesn't take the place of chemo and radiation treatment, but if you start taking it every day at the first signs of elevated cancer levels, it can make an enormous difference, and it can be mixed with whatever medications you already take... It's deeply nourishing and works slowly and surely... for more info, you can look up Susun Weed's videos on youtube.
Interesting. The bill is nearly a year old but can't be too surprised at the way it has been kept in the dark by both chambers. Thanks for mentioning this bill and I'll pass the word on it.
On an interesting note, I don't know if you've noted this but ever since that scam passed in 2010, premiums and deductibles not only went up but more people have reported about their insurance companies doing retroactive denials of claims. The way this retroactive denial would work is that it all looks acceptable and at first the insurance company gives you a statement saying it's paying it all only to come back a few months later and deny it. I've had one of them myself and had to fight tooth and nail to prove that it wasn't related to an earlier case just to get them to come clean and pay up as much as possible. If government were to do such things, people would hold them accountable easily whereas with private insurers, they get away with sneaky attacks like that. Why it's on the rise I'm unsure but had to mention this important info.
US healtcare is NOT "broken", its fixed, and those who fixed it are making a bundle at our expense.
Your line should be a bumper-sticker, Ray; and Esabi, thank you for the Cancer prevention tip. I used to have a copy of Susan Weed's book... but I can't find it.
Given who all were allow to write and fudge the rules on PPACA and who all were shut out and/or arrested, no doubt about it.
"We are a nation of individuals who believe that equality is to be valued."
Really? I used to think that, now I'm not so sure. I'd imagine that perhaps 40-50% of the population doesn't believe this. Certainly not the TPartiers.
At least 40 to 50% of the US population are afflicted with denial syndrome and believe they are part of the 1% or will someday be part of the 1%.
Hitler would be green with envy (but flattered) to see how well the 1% have refined his propaganda models.
There is a book I recommend people obtain a copy (public library is a good choice) and read. Howard Zinn's "A People's History Of The United States". You will learn that the American Revolution wasn't a "revolution", but a revolt by the wealthy of the colonies against British taxes. A lot of those who fought learned very quickly after the fighting was over that very little had actually changed. That the same wealthy people were still in charge of things and had no intentions of allowing the ordinary people to have a "say" in things. As a matter of fact, Mitt Romney and today's Republicans would feel right at home back then...
The only way most people will ever reach the 1% level is if they win one of the big money lotteries. Starting your own business is becoming more and more difficult to regulations that are increasingly costly to meet. Opening a retail store or a fast food franchise is increasingly more difficult due to competition from established businesses and increasing regulation. At one time you could obtain a Federal Firearms License, buy guns wholesale and sell them by putting ads in the local newspaper. I did this as a sideline for a while. That has been eliminated by government regulation. Now you have to have a "storefront" business, which is a lot more expensive. I know a guy who got into the lawncare business. That too is more difficult to "break into" today. Being a self employed contractor is another possible "personal small business", but again you will find it more difficult than it used to be. There are a lot of unemployed out there today who are trying to put what skills they have towards finding a means of supporting themselves. I had a small security guard business at one time. Today that would be more difficult to get into than it was back in the 1980's. So the self employment field isn't looking all that good now either. Additionally with so many people unemployed, people simply have less money to spend than before. I do have a relative who has done very good down in Florida with a "cakery", but he and his wife had the necessary skills and know how to do it. There are also a lot of retired people in Florida and that helped too. Matter of "location" there. He and his wife also are working lots of hours making a "go" of it. So there are still some possibilities out there for someone with the necessary smarts. Not as much as there used to be, but there is still some "opportunity" for a few as yet.
Of course if you have to worry about health care, then that is going to be a problem. Private health policies are considerably more expensive than the group policies that employers have. Plus, the coverage isn't likely to be as good either. For a family with kids, its even worse. If Obamacare survives the Supreme Court, it may "help".
The trouble with "lotteries" is that few win at any of them. Of those who end up winning, they're untrained with what to do with all the money and it doesn't take long for the scammers to exploit their weaknesses from there. The 99% need not reach the 1%. It is the 1% that must reach out to the 99% with true honor and sincerity.
Ayn Rand wrote a book called "The Virtue of Selfishness". Her thinking had a lot to do with how a lot of people today think. Listen to any group of Republicans or Tea Partiers (along with some Libertarians) and you'll see they're believers in Ayn Rand.
People need to organize and reclaim Congress from the Ayn Rand Republicans and TPartiers who are trying gut the vital poverty-reducing, health care programs Medicare and Medicaid...people with health challenges and disabilities need these programs.
Since all we hear is blathering about "filling the pool with healthy people and sick people" as a justification for mandatory insurance the real question to ask those who propose this is very simple: If more people make the price come down why not make everyone enroll in Medicare? It's hard to get a bigger pool than 300 million.
Of course the answer won't have anything to do with that kind of logic because we all know it's not about care but about insurance profits. What a "sick" country.
I have followed your articles for years Donna Smith and I consider you at the forefront of the fight for Medicare-for-all. I'm sorry your health is not 100%, but I'm still counting on you to be around for awhile!
As crazy as it seems, I think that universal healthcare is not that far off. The Supreme Court's ruling on Obamacare is not here or there. REAL healthcare (as in universal) is simply not being discussed in the MSM, yet people are catching on. Everyday people return from visiting far off lands (or Canada!) and return to report healthier societies, no bankruptcies due to illnesses and a government run healthcare system that covers everyone in the land. People describe their visits to the local doctor who greets them with kindness and concern without trying to sell them on a needless surgery or load them up with prescriptions and rush them out the door. More odd though to the visiting American is the absence of paperwork, no requests for the name of their HMO or health insurance provider and no out-of-pocket expenses at the end of their visit whether it be a minor problem or a major surgical procedure.
Service and ex-servicemen boast to their families and friends about excellent health coverage, free dental and no bills for prescription drugs. They cherish this very "socialist" aspect of their military career and ponder why the rest of us are denied such basic services. For many of them it is the primary reason they enlisted... long term security and benefits, something not offered to the civilian populace.
Hollywood continues to produce real life horror movies about the state of healthcare in America from 'John Q' to 'Sicko' with audiences in the millions. Despite hate radio programs quickly jumping all over these films as examples of the "left wing conspiracy", the films resonate with most of their viewers having personally experienced such horror in their own lives or the lives of people they're close to.
At some point a politician will get past the corporate vetting process and ride a populist pony all the way to D.C. on the promise of Medicare-for-all. It will be a bumpy ride and there will be set backs along the way, but that day will come.
Till then Donna... hang in there and keep spreading the message!
I have followed your articles for years Donna Smith and I consider you at the forefront of the fight for Medicare-for-all. I'm sorry your health is not 100%, but I'm still counting on you to be around for awhile!
As crazy as it seems, I think that universal healthcare is not that far off. The Supreme Court's ruling on Obamacare is not here or there. REAL healthcare (as in universal) is simply not being discussed in the MSM, yet people are catching on. Everyday people return from visiting far off lands (or Canada!) and return to report healthier societies, no bankruptcies due to illnesses and a government run healthcare system that covers everyone in the land. People describe their visits to the local doctor who greets them with kindness and concern without trying to sell them on a needless surgery or load them up with prescriptions and rush them out the door. More odd though to the visiting American is the absence of paperwork, no requests for the name of their HMO or health insurance provider and no out-of-pocket expenses at the end of their visit whether it be a minor problem or a major surgical procedure.
Service and ex-servicemen boast to their families and friends about excellent health coverage, free dental and no bills for prescription drugs. They cherish this very "socialist" aspect of their military career and ponder why the rest of us are denied such basic services. For many of them it is the primary reason they enlisted... long term security and benefits, something not offered to the civilian populace.
Hollywood continues to produce real life horror movies about the state of healthcare in America from 'John Q' to 'Sicko' with audiences in the millions. Despite hate radio programs quickly jumping all over these films as examples of the "left wing conspiracy", the films resonate with most of their viewers having personally experienced such horror in their own lives or the lives of people they're close to.
At some point a politician will get past the corporate vetting process and ride a populist pony all the way to D.C. on the promise of Medicare-for-all. It will be a bumpy ride and there will be set backs along the way, but that day will come.
Till then Donna... hang in there and keep spreading the message!
Your story touches me very deeply. You are a very courageous and wonderfully kind person. You shouldn't be going through this. The president and everyone should hear your story. I'm glad you wrote this article.
We not only need Medicare for all. Medicare covers only 80% - and when you try to buy a plan to cover the other 20%, you have to deal with Big Pharma and the Medical Industrial Complex, and 20% of a million is alot. Medicare is better than nothing, but we are more than nothing.
We need single-payer or Medicare 100% (and no weaseling out of paying for this or that) for all of us.
I know how you feel worrying about being sick, then the bills, and then your loved ones.
Get in touch with Change.org, RootsAction, or one of those progressive action groups, and have them write your story with a petition, and I bet you'll see alot of people on your side. You are us.
I hope the best for you. Don't give up, for yourself, and also because that's what the insurance companies want you to do.
The US health care industry doesn't like Medicare that much because Medicare doesn't allow the industry to charge the sort of prices it would like to be able to charge. This has been the driving force behind its resistance to every proposal ever made to create a system of national health insurance. The Clinton Plan of 1993 would have forced the health insurance industry to compete against itself, thus forcing down the cost of health insurance. The financing would have been done by a progressive payroll tax ranging from 7.8% to 15.6% split between employer and employee. The insurance industry would have be required to bid for the privilege of providing a large group community rated health insurance plan where each plan would have covered tens of thousands of people (this is the real idea of insurance). The Clinton Plan also offered a choice of plans ranging from a low cost HMO plan to a higher cost fee for service plan where you had a full choice of doctors. The opposition to this was driven by the fact that it would have taken a lot of the profit out of providing health insurance, there would have been "pressure" to hold down prices, the drug companies would also have had to negotiate down their prices. The entire plan was a lot like what they have in some European countries and would have given the US a true "national" system of health insurance at reasonable cost. On the other hand the Affordable Care Act of Obama's does nothing to control costs at all. It also requires additional taxes to pay for more Medicaid coverage, along with the assistance the government would provide for people to buy their own insurance. Without controls over the cost of insurance, the likely result is steadily rising premiums until people find their insurance costs are increasingly unaffordable...
I spent two months fighting my health insurance company to "allow me" to go back to my privately purchased individual policy. This was after I finished a short-term contract job where I had a group plan with the same insurance company.
I am a healthy 56 year old and yet the list of reasons why I was being denied was outrageous. Someone in the individual policy sales department indicated I shouldn't have actually been seeing my doctors and using the medical services offered because each office visit (preventative, etc) counts against me! So I can pay them the increasing cost of monthly premiums, and higher office co-payments, but I'm not to ever go for an office visit for preventative or proactive care.
I finally won my battle and am back to the individual plan. However, I had a battle last month when they tried to charge me for an annual gynecology wellness exam. I wasn't even going to go for that but the online health survey with my insurance provider indicated that was the only thing keeping me from having an excellent score (that and needing to lose some weight). I asked the gynecologist if he advised me having the exam and he said yes. I verified each step of the way that there'd be no charge or office co-pay because it was a routine preventative exam --one of my policy "benefits".
A $30 charge was added to a (small) sum of other expenses that I owe. I questioned each part of the balance due and asked them to research the $30 charge. Two weeks later I was told it was because I was in the gynecologist's office more minutes than allowed for that routine exam, so they were not going to bill it as a routine wellness check-up afterall. I stood my ground and got them to drop the charge.
What a waste of everyone's time and energy to have to watch, verify, document, and battle every step of the way with healthcare. I will contact my representatives and ask them to support the American Health Security Act.
BTW - I've been told insurance premiums have gone up because of all the work the insurance company needs to do in order to comply with the Affordable Healthcare Act! Why wasn't there something put in place in that bill that limits how much the insurance companies can charge? The "affordable" law is causing prices to be raised, so healthcare will become LESS affordable!
The driving force behind American health insurance is to make money for the stockholders. Providing service to policy holders is of lesser importance.
You speak the truth and the unfortunate reality. I lost a friend to her second round of breast cancer. She was about to max out her benefits when she went to hospice. I can't help but wonder if the worry about how to fund her next round of treatments are what really caused her death. It took 3 jobs and all her strength just to manage the co-pays. In a for profit system the only beneficiaries are the CEO's.
Donna,
You can check out Change.org. They have something you can click on to start a petition.
Petition? Donna has spent countless hours, days, weeks, months, and years working to get single-payer health care in this country. A petition won't do it. All that work hasn't done it. I first met Donna when she made a presentation at a subcommittee hearing Rep. Conyers held on the link between bankruptcy and medical costs. I'd already seen and been touched by her in SiCKO, but her testimony on that day in Congress moved me. I have been a part of this struggle to move to Medicare for All, and I know the only way to get there is to start running Congressional candidates who support it. For years there have been around 80 (sometimes more or less) members who support single-payer; that means we have to quit begging these two major parties and find at least 250 more people to run just on that issue. We can keep the 80 who are on our side, but the rest have to go.
We are not a "nation of individuals who believe equality is to be valued", but a nation in which half the individuals believe that equality is guvmint intrusion into their lives. It's also a nation in which a large proportion are literally incapable of feeling the empathy that ought to teach them solidarity with other sufferers. The national worship of profiteering is almost impossible to defeat, since the routine exaltation of the profit-motive is obligatory across the permissible political spectrum.
The US is the only developed country that has a major political party like our Republicans. Otherwise known as "The National Social Darwinist Rich Peoples' Party", a "living fossil" from the 19th Century's "Gilded Age". The Titanic which sank April 15th, 1912 was an example of that sort of thinking. A ship with just enough life boats for the "First Class" passengers. Built in Great Britain, with money from wealthy American investors. Which is why while the rest of the developed countries and even some lesser developed countries have national health insurance, the USA does not. The truth is, unless you are a person who likes to own firearms, the rest of the developed world has more to offer than the USA does. When JFK asked, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." The proper answer would be "why"? The US simply offers most people less than what they'd have living in most any other developed country. For example, there are fewer self employed Americans as a percentage of the population than what you'll find in most European countries, Canada, Japan, or "down under". People in all these countries don't worry about being bankrupted from medical bills. This is something only Americans worry about. Or people in third world countries.
Donna Smith is absolutely right. As a retired US Army soldier living in Germany. I am able to obtain excellent medical care, as do ALL German nationals, since all are required to have Health Insurance, run by the German Government. It is not free, since all are required to pay into it and surprising enough the German Health system has a large profit in their reserve fund. We on the other hand are the only industrialized nation without a National Health plan. Why? Because of Big Business, who greedily put profits before people. Teddy Roosevelt was right when he labelled BIG MONEY "Traitors to the People." As for those of you who want to call a National Health Care system "socialism"- be my guest, but remember the words of the Lord Jesus. when He said: "what you did for the least of these, you did for Me."
Bonatti - An Old Soldier
Germany has a great healthcare system and insurance system, that is similar to what we currently have - but vastly improved because everyone is covered, outcomes are better, and costs are better controlled.
Donna, warm wishes to you for good health. I hope this is just a scare; but if it is not, please don't give up. You have been a great leader in the fight for Medicare-for-All, and I don't want to lose you.
But I understand your fear and frustrations. My mother is currently on her 2nd bout with breast cancer; and even though she has decent insurance and some savings, the co--pays are going to bankrupt my folks. And the insurance company fights about every single drug and test her doctor prescribes. Yeah, the insurance companies' "death panels" are soooo much better than a government bureaucrat. At least the government bureaucrat won't make a bonus by telling you you can't have the drug your doctor thinks would be most effective.
Tell me again how we have the "best health care in the world"?
I am also retired and living in Mexico. A place amerikans like to call a 'poor 3rd world country'. Although I have (mostly) free health care in the US, I also have it here! Amazing huh? I have no desire to return to that mess up there. Until the people of the US get off their behinds and demand a new government model they will be permanently oppressed by the elite investor class. Hit the streets and scream! There is no reason to live like that in these times. We no longer have a 4th estate serving the country or a gov. serving the people, but have social media, and I presume still have arms & legs that work. Get out and make your case known by the sheer force of your numbers, you can bring about the change you want and need so desperately. When there is an OWS rally, it should be millions, not thousands or pitifully, hundreds. If you wait until WWIII, after we attack Iran for our Israeli overlords, it will be too late. Do it now!
Medicare for all. Medicare Part A is free, that's hospitalization. Medicare Part B is now $99/mo, that's for medical--the cost for this rises almost yearly. Then there's the other parts that are costly but still do not cover teeth, ears, eyes. I'm sure everyone will be looking forward to paying far more than $100/mo for insurance full of holes and requiring other private insurance coverage to make up for it. Great choice! Really, really not a thoughtful choice.
Have you checked the price of private insurance? Good luck finding basic coverage for $99/mo.; especially if you're over 65 and have any existing health problems. $99/mo is a steal. Talk about not being thoughtful.
All I can say is that health insurance companies make a profit from people suffering. What slimy fucks they are, prove me wrong. It's their job to STOP the suffering and they twiddle their thumbs and retroactively deny your coverage, and seemingly laugh all the way to their favorite corporate bank.
Are you sure you are 57 Donna? Go back to the county courhouse where your birth certificate is stored and talk with your clerk of records. I think a mistake might have been made, I think that "1955" should have read "1945" See if you can correct that mistake.
I want single payer universal health care regardless of the morons people choose to represent them and the big money elite that buys the miserable jerks. I just got a letter from Scott Walker in response to my opposition to his new law ending the possibility of anyone suing for discrimination in employment in Wisconsin. Walker claims that the increased liability of employers for discrimination lawsuits inhibits business. Two things:
1) If the businesses don't discriminate against women, gays, veterans, or anybody else no lawsuit and no liability.
2) If business prosperity means we have to allow a bunch of BIGOTS IN BUSINESS TO RUN ROUGHSHOD ON PEOPLE, we could do with a lot less 'prosperity.'
Actually, this is another of Walker's bullshit false choices. There is no evidence anywhere that corporate welfare, insignificant taxes on the rich, torturing the poor by taking what little they have and making jobs dangerous hell holes where the worker has to be a slave to the masters improves the economy except for a tiny elite. The world tried it before - it was called feudalism. Even the Lord of the manor shivered alone in the fortress worrying that someone would kill him and seize the manor. The Lord of the manor often thought that raising taxes on the serfs would be a good idea because the little thieves had it so good.
Donna, your insights and thoughtful commentary are valuable contributions to the fight for healthcare for all Americans who are living south of Canada and north of Mexico. Don't let the bastards take your life and silence you on account of money. Going out in a blaze of glory doesn't even make the news anymore. (Sorry Huey). I have heard that travelers to countries like Switzerland get good, free medical treatment. Hopefully your results will be such that you can continue the struggle. We need you. All the best.
Emmigrate now! We need you Donna.