Quit Playing with My Life
By Art Pronin for TaylorMarsh.com –
The reason I have been a Democrat is because Dems are supposed to protect Social Security and the welfare state. Dems, the real ones, back progressive taxation. I found out about the hard way the wonders that leaders like FDR and LBJ achieved for our nation. Many years ago, in college, I got sick with food poisoning. The illness damaged nerves in my gut and I have struggled ever since with debilitating stomach issues. Overnight my life changed. Literally.
I had private medical insurance through my father, but we couldn’t make the bills with the insurance. The copays, fees and worse broke me financially. I had trouble working due to my illness. I filed for disability, and after a two year battle, got Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Without this I do not know what would have happened to me; the progressive agenda saved me.
Overnight I, like many, went from middle class to poor. I have been in food stamp lines many times. You see SSI gives me little to live on, say $700 a month. Food stamps are essential so I had to get them. Not a day goes by when I do not think of those poor people waiting around the block for food stamps. There is no shame in being poor. No shame in having become so ill you need the government to help you. Yet leaders in both parties attack the vulnerable.
Our pols today are a joke. DC is a joke. Truly. Their church now is austerity. The cuts Obama and the GOP have agreed to so far have dashed hopes in my life and those of so many others. Obama agreed to massive HUD cuts. The waiting list now to get a Section 8 voucher is even longer than before. The list has been CLOSED for 3 years here. Now I cannot apply until 2014. So all those thousands in need of a place to live must wait because of the budget cuts. Our government has never given enough to help those in need, but this is beyond the pale.
No other western nation makes the disabled impoverished like we do. None. I already get so very little to live on, cannot get a voucher to pay for a apartment due to the Obama/GOP cuts, while other programs are being demolished here in Texas and elsewhere.
Too many people do not seem to get how essential Medicaid and Sect. 8 is to millions of lives. Medicaid seems expendable to many I know. Medicaid is already almost worthless. If you need a specialist good luck. It pays doctors so badly it’s not hard not to imagine people dying of lack of care; but it pays hospital and basic primary care. And yet many Dems and Republicans are eager to carve away this program. The same goes for HUD and Sect. 8. Making people in need of housing wait a decade to get a voucher is criminal. Yet pols hack away.
Cuts of a billion here and there. It sounds all so painless in the abstract. But these cuts crush lives. Crush dreams. Crush dignity. The Church of Austerity must be destroyed.
I had a bumper sticker ” Health care is a right not a priveledge”. I am employed as a social worker. Very rewarding work but not great pay. I pay $500 a month for family plan for health insurance. It has a $1500 deductable and $5000 out of pocket. I have a $50 copay for specialists. I mention all of this because I rarely get sick. I was just diagnosed with cancer. The costs are high. The hospital care more about getting their money then letting my have the biopsy. Something is wrong when you are trying to do the right thing and work and take care of your family and your told we don’t accept your HMO. I work with families with children with disabilities. I see it everyday. We need a health care program that works for everyone. Please lets make the changes for all people to be treated fairly when they need health care. Thank you.
I am an average person who is fortunate to be in pretty good health. I am careful about what I eat and I regularly exercise. My other family members are in a similar situation. I am not a cold or heartless person but I do not feel I am responsible for the health care of others. Should I work more hours, and thus spend more time away from my family or less time taking of myself, so that someone else gets better healthcare? My employer and I already pay much more in insurance premiums than we use. I feel that I am being taken advantage of. If someone in my family had a major health problem and I needed to make more money to take care of them, I would gladly do it. It is because they are part of my family, but a stranger is not. Sorry, that is the way it is.
“If someone in my family had a major health problem and I needed to make more money to take care of them, I would gladly do it.” Yes, but if that happened (and major problems like auto-immune diseases or cancer or car accidents can happen to a person no matter how good your health habits) and there was a loophole in your insurance — and most insurance policies have some loopholes if you happen to hit them — the bills would likely be more than you could earn to pay.
Or what if there were a layoff and you lost your health insurance? Or you stopped being able to hold a job after a devastating car accident — eventually your insurance would lapse and you would still need medical care and so would your dependents.
You ARE being taken advantage of, but it is our bizarre and complicated insurance and medical system with huge overhead and paperwork that makes medicine and insurance so expensive in this country.
You are blaming the wrong folks — those who have less than you and who in some cases are simply unfortunate.
Batgirl, you are so naive, to make such a comment is sad. You are living in a dream world. I could say so much but I don’t think you could understand (or would refuse to understand) until you had to walk a different path. Why does everyone have to be a stranger? Where is empathy and goodwill for your fellow neighbor? Every person has a story; hard working people and the person you may consider a bum. Try looking at people with different eyes- non-judgmental eyes.
you batgirl are a very selfish denying human. Shame on you.
We have already been told by those who police our Health industry in the government ,its Medical Health fraud of the system amass so much just in over Billing and tremendous abuse of charges in Medicine & Drug holes and Doctor & Hospitals to get more government money we all have fallen victim to the private sector abuse .They say if the fraud alone was cleaned up we could afford medicare for all with very low payments and no deductibles or prexisting conditions to strap us to . And its the Republicans that want to keep spinning the wheel of fortune to those same private insurance companies that abuse us . As a female I lost my insurance and it was the affordable obama care that would insure me . This is wrong to be denied coverage by the private sector insurance because i am female ,my husband has many medical problems yet they insured him . I have never in 40 years been to a Hospital or had surgery and have nothing wrong and never filed a claim with Blue Cross but I was denied after paying them high premiums over 20 yrs , Thanks to Obama I have coverage now ! and its the same private sector insurance companies I was denied by that Romney & Ryan want to let them tell us what it cost with a vochure ! Get ready to go broke and Die America if Romney gets elected