OT medicine costs killing me

On Sat, 27 Mar 2004 20:13:59 -0600 (CST), (Leslie
in Missouri) wrote:

WHOA there!!! I also wear $300 suits and dresses (to church) because I
haunt the thrift shops and catch the doctor's and lawyer's wives cast
offs- which I buy for $2.00. Please don't be so quick to judge....

Leslie- on disability and Medicaid... and damn sure wish I wasn't!!!

Yeah, I have gotten snarky comments in the grocery line because the
kids were wearing designer stuff their gramma sent, or I was wearing
nice clothes I have made.

Only had a lady apologize once. We were buying a lobster, which
anyone would be right to raise their eyebrows at. But the lobster in
question (the seafood manager named him Attila) had broken his bonds
and run amok in the lobster tank, ravaging his fellow lobsters and
leaving no living thing in his wake. The seafood manager, being
rather distraught, grabbed old Attila and steamed his renegade
crustacean self. Then he wrapped him up and stuck a $2 price tag on
him. We just happened to have the good fortune to run across him
before anyone else did! (G) After checking to make sure the decimal
point was in the right place (which was how we learned his name and
history), we sure as heck bought him! Swapped him for 5 pounds of
local honey too!
Anyway the cashier had to check on that decimal point as well, and the
lady behind us overheard and actually apologized for mumbleing
unpleasent things even though we hadn't heard her. It also got my
head patted by the elder gent at the next register (for luck), and
several people stepping over to gawk at the $2 'killer' lobster.
Best buy I had made at the grocery since they mismarked the aparagus
at 75 cents a pound instead of $1.75 a bunch.

NightMist
also on SSI and medicaid.

--
"It's such a gamble when you get a face"
- Richard Hell

Both of the sentiments below are right on target.

And rather than sitting around bemoaning what is happening here
in the U.S., I am going to get off my butt and try and change it.
Since I am in Colorado, and one of our U.S. Senate seats is up for
grabs this election, I will be working for the Democratic candidate.
If the Democrats can take control of the Senate, this could be more
important in the long run than electing a different president (altho
I would be delighted to see the incumbent lose!) Remember, the
Senate, among many other things, confirms Supreme Court appointments.
Want to see abortion rights and much other social progress go the
way of the dodo? Just let Bush nominate a new Supreme Court justice
or two!! I have a nine year old daughter. I was fortunate to grow
up in a time when many good things were starting to happen for women,
and I don't want my daughter to have them taken away by a bunch of
old rich men. If you don't like Bush, work for Kerry, or contribute
what you can to his campaign.

Three years ago, I had a six figure income. Last year I made about
$10k, and recently I took a $13/hr job that will offer me the option of
insurance benefits, since DH feels his job is in danger. Despite this,
I am very conscious of how lucky we have been, and how much worse it
could be.

-- g


Mardi wrote:
On Sun, 28 Mar 2004 17:58:09 +0100, Kate Dicey
wrote:


Part of civilization is the willingness to take care of our old, and
sick, as a society, rather than leaving it to the lottery of one's
ability to earn and therefore pay.


Kate:

You really nailed the problem with that sentence. It makes me very
sad that I live in a country that seems to only value the wealthy. It
also makes me sad that we are a country of "nimbies". So many people
have the attitude that they don't see why they should pay for
something that benefits someone else. It's like the old people who
vote down a school bond issue because they don't have any kids in the
school. Well, exactly who paid for their kids education?

We are rapidly approaching a situation where we are becoming a country
of the haves (the rich) and the have-not's (the rest of us). Our
middle class is rapidly becoming the poverty class. When a country
becomes that stratified the end result is usually a revolution. I
hope we can solve our problems before it gets to that point. But, if
W wins another term in office I think we are pretty much doomed.

Mardi

"julia sidebottom" wrote in message
...
Unfortunately my medication cost are very high. It averages to about
$1600 a month. Even the new changes in Medicare for prescriptions is
not going to be of any help to me...

The new changes in Medicare aren't going to help very many people. It's
gonna do a lot for the drug and insurance companies though, so that's a
plus, isn't it? AARP needs to be slapped - hard.

Cindy

"Dr. Quilter" wrote in message
...
hope all you guys in the US remember this thread come November...


Most of the people on here will do the right thing, but it still wont' be
enough. There is far too much money to be made with the status quo. No way
are the powers that be gonna change that. They did such a good job of
brainwashing people the last go round, that it will take a generation to
come around again. DH was on a governors health care task force in the
early 90's and they went around this poor state having hearing and you would
not believe the number of people (and I'm talking people on Medicaid) who
got up and said they didn't want their choices limited. Choices? What
makes ANY of us believe we have any choices when it comes to health care?
If you aren't in an HMO or a managed care plan, your own personal
contribution to your health care plan has risen to the point that you can't
afford to go to the doctor anyway. Greed. And it's getting worse. Without
a foot on their neck, the medical profession and the insurance companies can
and will get away with murder.

Really, really one of my personal demons.
Cindy

"Taria" wrote in message
...
Don't hesitate to ask your dr. for meds that are less expensive if
there is an option.

Absolutely! You are most likely to get the drug that was pushed by the last
salesman in the office. And it sure isn't going to be the cheapest. Always
ask the cost at the time and if there is an alternative. Either an older
drug or generic. I am constantly amazed that people don't do this.

Cindy

"Dr. Quilter" wrote in message
...
IMHO companies should have to provide insurance for their employess by
law. Are you telling me they don't here, they are just being nice to us?
I never cease to be amazed, it is like that other thing I heard on NPR
on Labour Day - the US is the only well off country that does not have
mandatory vacation time... in other places you got 3, 4 weeks, 2 at
least, and some of the countries in the list were in South America,
Asia, etc., not all European, Japan or Canada as you might think..
whatever happened to the unions, why haven't they fought these battles
for the workers???


Only 13% of US workers are unionized. Most of the good paying union jobs
have been shipped off shore. The government makes it so difficult to start
a union where there is none, that workers give up in frustration. Sometimes
it takes years. If the company doesn't want it, you have to be prepared for
the long haul.

Plus you've got the specter of the Communist boogey man that has always
loomed large over the labor movement. The Reich is so afraid of working
people actually standing up for themselves, that the myths and the fantasies
about the bad old union men are constantly repeated. If every working
person in this country had the guts to stick together and demand health
care, we'd have it. Or this country would stop dead in its tracks. And I
don't doubt it would be the envy of the world. But until some of us who
are a little too comfortable (as in, it can't POSSIBLY happen to me) get a
little uncomfortable, it's never gonna happen.

But I keep my fingers crossed.
Cindy

On Sun, 28 Mar 2004 19:37:44 GMT, Mardi wrote:

On Sun, 28 Mar 2004 17:58:09 +0100, Kate Dicey
wrote:

Part of civilization is the willingness to take care of our old, and
sick, as a society, rather than leaving it to the lottery of one's
ability to earn and therefore pay.

Kate:

You really nailed the problem with that sentence. It makes me very
sad that I live in a country that seems to only value the wealthy. It
also makes me sad that we are a country of "nimbies". So many people
have the attitude that they don't see why they should pay for
something that benefits someone else. It's like the old people who
vote down a school bond issue because they don't have any kids in the
school. Well, exactly who paid for their kids education?

We are rapidly approaching a situation where we are becoming a country
of the haves (the rich) and the have-not's (the rest of us). Our
middle class is rapidly becoming the poverty class. When a country
becomes that stratified the end result is usually a revolution. I
hope we can solve our problems before it gets to that point. But, if
W wins another term in office I think we are pretty much doomed.

Mardi


Real e-mail address spelled out to prevent spam. mardi at mardiweb dot com.
____________________

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The US already *is* divided into the "haves" and "have nots". With
the poverty line which is a joke at one extreme, and gated communities
at the other, the US is far more divided along class lines than any of
the stories Charles Dickens wrote during the Victorian Age. If you
can get a copy of the book, "Class" read it. It is very interesting.
There are lots of class divisions in the US, but somehow no one talks
about it, the way folks talk about it in the UK. Everyone likes to
pretend the US is a class-less society; meanwhile folks fall over
themselves to admire the very rich and thereby create the problem - if
the very rich got where they are because the deserve it, then the very
poor must have got where they are because they deserve it as well.
I admire all of the folks who are voting and taking action to change
things. I however, was tired of paying a significant chunk of my
paycheck for medication at age 19, when I was diagnosed as having
ulcerative colitis through no fault of my own. I didn't drink and I
didn't smoke, and I was barely an adult. So when I got the chance to
emigrate, I did it. And no my sister enjoys ranting about how she is
*not* going to pay for the health care of "someone else" who is
probably smoking 70 cigarettes a day, blah blah blah. Never mind that
her best friend battled cervical cancer (and got to pay for it all) or
that her own sister has a condition (and was paying for it all)...
You can only stay on a sinking ship for so long...


-- Jo in Scotland

The reason why people in the USA can't afford prescription drugs is
because the FAT CAT drug manufactures charge us premium prices for
drugs they sell to other countries for a fraction of the price.

Also, your system involves insurance companies, ours doesn't. A very
large fraction of health care costs in the US goes on paying people to
shuffle money around and check forms rather than do any actual caring
or medical-product supply. The amount of effort involved is, by the
standards of other countries, absolutely nuts - every time I visited
the doctor when I was in the US, the form I filled in was more complex
than anything I needed to buy a *house* here. All of that data has to
be checked, processed and audited. It wsn't the medical-care industry
that scuppered Clinton's plans to improve US health care, it was the
insurance business.

As well as being ludicrously wasteful of money, it's just plain degrading
to have to go through so many bureaucratic hoops to get treatment. I
think the last time I filled in a form where I needed my NHS number was
about 1985; I've no idea what it is, and neither do most British residents.
When I was in the US I memorized my social security number within days, I
needed it all the time - I got so ****ed off with being hassled for it
that I seriously considered going to a tattoo parlour and getting the
damn thing put on my arm in the same spot where the Nazis put the numbers
of concentration camp inmates. It took me ten years to forget it after
I left.

======== Email to "j-c" at this site; email to "bogus" will bounce ========
Jack Campin: 11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU; 0131 6604760
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NightMist wrote:

Yeah, I have gotten snarky comments in the grocery line because the
kids were wearing designer stuff their gramma sent, or I was wearing
nice clothes I have made.


It is comments like this that make me glad of my idiosyncracies. So
often I've gotten myself in trouble for being oblivious to what's going
on around me. EVERYONE at work or school or in a social setting will
know who's going out with whom or all about some new policy. I'll feel
like an idiot because I don't pick up on these things unless they're
spelled out for me. I have a sort of social oblivion that hasn't always
worked in my favor.


Then there are the situations where I'm so glad I'm me, and this is one
of them. Not only can I not imagine ever making a snarky remark, I
can't even imagine NOTICING what someone else has in their shopping
cart. I might glance to see if it's full so I could get in another
line, but pay attention to what someone is buying? I have enough
troubles with my own groceries.


Same with clothes. Unless you're dressed in some outlandish clown suit
or stark naked, I don't see clothes. I imagine being the only witness
to some crime and being questioned by a police office. All my answers
about what the criminal was wearing or looked like would be "uh, gosh, I
never noticed, sorry."


And method of payment? I'm lost in my own world. I'm reading the
Weekly World News. I'm paying attention the chocolate bars behind me.
See whether the person in front of me has cash, check, coupons or food
stamps? You've GOT to be kidding.


--Lia

NightMist wrote:

Yeah, I have gotten snarky comments in the grocery line because the
kids were wearing designer stuff their gramma sent, or I was wearing
nice clothes I have made.


Another thing people don't think of: Years ago I had an aunt who was
disabled and received food stamps. She couldn't get to the grocery store,
so my mother would get her order for her. My mom worked in an office,
dressed nice and drove a nice Jeep Wagoneer. She often got comments when
she used my aunt's food stamps to pay for the order.

Iris