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The Forest For The Trees

By Janet  |  2011/09/20 00:22 Posted in American Politics, Exploitation of Wealth, Exploitation/Rape/Abuse, Health-Related, Honesty, News, Social Mores  |  Comments (0)

I am on Medicare and Medicaid. Because I’m on Medicare, I qualify for Medicare Part D, which (begrudgingly) covers most of my medicine. The Medicaid pays some of the co-pay, but doesn’t usually impact what drugs I can and cannot take. That means that I am lucky. I am lucky that I am not one of those people who is reliant solely on Medicaid for medical care and prescription drugs.

Last week, I got a lovely little letter in the mail from the state Medicaid office saying that I can only get 4 brand name drugs per month under my insurance. The only drugs that wouldn’t be counted against the 4 are antipsychotics and antiretrovirals/other HIV medicines. (Antipsychotics can cost about $300 a month, but so can some other drugs.)

So, if a person were on any of the following drugs, then they would have to make sure that they were only getting four of the medicines per month:

  • Lipitor – cholesterol medicine (won’t be generic for a few months)
  • Nexium – acid reflux medicine
  • Plavix – blood thinner (won’t be generic for a few months)
  • Advair Diskus – asthma/COPD inhaler
  • Singulair – asthma medicine
  • Crestor – cholesterol medicine
  • Actos – diabetes medicine
  • Epogen – an injected medication, usually given to people on dialysis

Those eight drugs are on the top 10 best-selling drugs list from 2010. They are drugs that keep people alive. They are drugs that are clearly necessary for people to survive. They are also very expensive. One box of ten vials of Epogen is over $2700. The monthly cost for Nexium is at $100, if you have to pay out of pocket. Advair costs $150 per month. Plavix is $200 per month.

As you can see, these medicines cost a lot of money. And anyone on Medicaid in the state of Alabama has been determined to be below the poverty level, which means that they do not have the money to purchase drugs costing such high prices, yet they are being asked to do so. I don’t really get why exactly the State of Alabama expects people on Medicaid to be able to afford these drugs or why they want them to cover the cost.

Yes, Alabama is in need of money. I doubt that that would be the fault of the people using Medicaid, though. Maybe, they should blame the people who either received or gave out the $247 million in improperly awarded unemployment benefits. Or, maybe they should blame the various politicians and business people who decided to run scams (Enron), schemes (Madoff), wars (Bush and Cheney), tax cuts/refusal of tax increases (Boehner, Cantor, the Tea Party, etc.), and found other ways to screw the system out of the money. Now, it is easy to take away the medicines from the poor and sick, but that doesn’t mean it is right.

How many lives will be jeopardized because the State has decided that they don’t want to fork over money for medicines anymore? How many people could die because of this decision? Yeah, that may sound like some kind of kneejerk, anxiety-riddled idea, but it is a realistic issue when agencies decide to take this kind of cost-cutting measure. People will suffer because of this decision. People might die. This shit just got very, very real.

Let ‘Em Die!

By Janet  |  2011/09/14 15:43 Posted in 2012 Presidential Elections and Primaries, American Politics, Economy, Health-Related, News, Television and Other Media  |  Comments (1)

The other night at the GOP Presidential debate, several people showed their (ugly) true colors.  Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul, “What do you tell a guy who is sick, goes into a coma and doesn’t have health insurance? Who pays for his coverage? Are you saying society should just let him die?”  There were people in the crowd who wildly cheered and yelled out, “Yeah!”

Ron Paul made sure to say that he thought that friends, families, and non-government institutions like charities and churches should be the ones to cover the costs for a person who gets sick and has no health insurance.  He claimed, “We never turned anybody away from the hospital…We have given up on this whole concept that we might take care of ourselves, assume responsibility for ourselves … that’s the reason the cost is so high.”  He may have never turned a person away because they couldn’t afford care, but some some doctors have.  I’ve received letters from doctors that said that they would no longer see me because I had accrued so much debt at their office that they couldn’t “afford” to see me anymore.  So, while some hospitals might not turn people away, it does happen.  And someone’s life could be significantly harmed (or ended) by doctors who turn them away because of lack of money.

And he still hasn’t been able to show that he and his friends were able to provide one of his best friends (who was uninsured because of a pre-existing condition) with adequate health care prior to his death from pneumonia. It seems like seeing someone you care about go through a disease that kills them and seeing them be unable to pay the medical bills might inspire a politician or any person to advocate on behalf of the uninsured instead of advocating against them. According to the hospital that the friend of Paul went to, the multiple medical bills that the friend accrued during his treatment have gone unpaid. The friend, though dead, still owes $400,000 or so. Why did Ron Paul not take some of the money that he puts toward campaigning (even though he won’t win the Presidency) and put it toward taking care of his friend? Shouldn’t he be able to cover it? He is a friend of the man and that is who he thinks should be responsible for covering this kind of cost.

As for the people who cheered and yelled in support of letting people die if they have no insurance, they are truly the worst examples of human beings that I have ever seen.  I would hope that they were not fully paying attention, but I don’t think that that is the case.  I think they were actually cheering on the potential demise of their fellow citizens and that is just horrifying and sickening to hear.

I’ve been thinking about the Tea Party lately and how it advocates against health care reform, for reducing spending for programs that help people (especially the poor, sick, elderly, and very young), against programs that provide food to the hungry, and against immigration because it takes away jobs from certain people. Most of their arguments seem to end up pointing to their concerns about having money. They are wanting to keep money to themselves instead of allowing it to go to programs that could help people. This craving for wealth and lack of concern for the health and nature of others in the world reminds me of 1 Timothy 6:10:

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

This is what their outbursts, protests, whining, and snide behavior makes me think of. People are too concerned with their wallets and not concerned enough about other people. Even if all other things in the Bible might prove false, this one verse seems to be absolutely true. People who care about money to such extremes truly lose what it means to be human and to be good. They lose the ability to perceive the world for what it is, and begin only seeing it in terms of their own selfish agendas. That is truly vile, and I wish that these folks would open their eyes and see what they are really supporting.

Oh, Look, He Isn’t Evil

By Janet  |  2011/08/17 16:25 Posted in News, Race, Social Mores  |  Comments (0)

Lately, I have seen so many people in my area that hate Hispanics because they think that they are all here illegally, are all evil, are all some how deficient in some way, etc.  So, when I heard about a man from New Mexico who was extremely heroic, I thought that it was almost perfect to hear a positive story about a Latino.

Antonio Diaz Chacon has shown so many people who view Latinos aas evil that you can’t make sweeping generalizations. When Philip Garcia snatched a 6-year old girl in Albuquerque, Diaz Chacon gave chase. He jumped into his black pickup and chased after Garcia’s black pickup. Garcia crashed into a telephone pole and fled on foot. Diaz Chacon grabbed the little girl and took her home. Later, Garcia returned to his wrecked van, but was captured by the police.

Diaz Chacon’s actions make him a hero. The little girl who was saved was very, very lucky that this man was willing to go after Garcia, who had packing tape and a tie-down strap hidden under a rock near his van. In the van, he had tostadas (ones belonging to the little girl), a glove, a Leatherman tool, a black satchel, and another strap. There is no telling what horrors this little girl would have faced without the help of this heroic man. Normally, this kind of kidnapping would have some very depressing, tragic end and we wouldn’t get to see how someone who doesn’t even speak English showed that sparks of humanity don’t lie in a language or an ethnicity, but in the brave and amazing spirit that people like Diaz Chacon have. He saved this little girl because he thought of his own two young daughters and how he would want someone else to do the same for them if the situation was different.

In a society where so many people of Latino origin are forced into a stereotype of being vicious and sadistic, Diaz Chacon shows that you can’t judge an entire people by some racist misconception perpetrated by people who are set on remaining ignorant.  I wish that there were more positive stories in the news about Hispanic folks because it seems like all that I ever hear is the negative stuff, and I think that that fuels a lot of the ignorance that people seem desperate to hold onto.  Maybe more stories about folks like this wonderful, heroic dad might inspire people to turn away from the ignorance.

98%, Huh?

By Janet  |  2011/08/02 17:19 Posted in American Politics, Economy, News  |  Comments (0)

According to the crying king Speaker of the House, John Boehner, he got 98 percent of what he wanted.  Yes, 98% is the number that he used.  Whether that number actually represents how much he got or is just an exaggeration remains a bit unknown.  It does further exemplify my belief that the GOP members of Congress do not understand the meaning of the word “compromise” and are cry-babies when they don’t get their way.

Boehner has spent his tenure as Speaker of the House whining about all of the injustices incurred upon the country by the establishment and the Democrats.  Boehner does not point out that this is his 20th year in the Congress.  He has been in office under 2 Republican presidents and, now, 2 Democratic presidents.  He has seen the country in a surplus and in a deficit.  He participated in the 1995-1996 shutdown by another Congress full of cry-baby Republicans.  He has voted for increased spending and, then, turned around and told Americans that spending is an evil thing.  He has voted for decrease in the taxes and has advocated continuing tax cuts on people earning over $250,000 a year.  He has advocated stripping spending from Democratic favorites like Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, etc., but justified blank checks for a Republican favorite, the Defense Department.

The problem with the American government is that Congress doesn’t understand that they are elected to actually do a job.  I heard one Congressman say that the only job of the federal government is to defend the country.  If that were the case, then the United States Constitution would specify that the role of the federal government is to defend the country from outside invaders.  It would make the document a lot shorter and would probably mean that there is no use for Congress, the Supreme Court, and the President and Vice President.  If the only purpose of the government was to provide a military protection, then it wouldn’t be a government.  It would be an alliance of sovereign state governments.  Despite what some Teapotheads have stated, that is not the purpose of the government.

Many of these people have said that the government needs to be run like a business, not realizing that a government is not a business.  A government is more like an organization.  It has committees and leaders, like an organization.  It was set up to do good for people living within its borders, which is much like what an organization would do.   Of course, explaining this to those people is pretty much a futile activity, since the Tea Party is made of egocentric individuals who only care about their own well-being and pocketbooks.

I can only hope that people realize that the activities of this Congress are not appropriate and can damage the nation’s image on the world stage.  Even if people think that the nation needs to adapt a more isolationist attitude, I would hope that they would realize that that is not possible in the world that we live in.  We are a part of a global system, and the continued idiocy displayed by Congress is showing the world that we have a government that is full of whiny brats.  That display not only endangers things like our country’s credit rating, but also the economies within other places in the world.  The misbehavior here has a negative impact on the rest of the world.  That should be kept in mind by politicians here, but it is unlikely that they will care or even attempt to modify their behaviors in a positive way.  Instead, it might make them behave more irresponsibly just to challenge the world.  (You can tell how I really don’t like the way that this nation’s leaders are behaving.)

I should be rejoicing right now that the debt ceiling bill passed both Houses, but the reported high number of job losses that will occur as a result of this bill plus the smugness of the supreme cry-baby is just really annoying the hell out of me.  It seems that a bill that was passed to save the economy might actually just put the country through more suffering.  I think that Congress should be ashamed of the lack of understanding that they all seem to be displaying.  They should have to  pay the people who will suffer because of this bill out of their own pockets and bank accounts.  Maybe if they understood how some people actually need money instead of just wanting it out of greed, then they might actually start passing laws that help people instead of hurting them.

English, Motherfucker, Do You Speak It?

By Janet  |  2011/07/28 13:20 Posted in American Politics, Economy, News  |  Comments (0)

I just heard Eric Cantor say that Obama told the Congress to compromise, so, according to him, they have compromised.  Well, that’s funny.  How exactly has the Grand Old Party compromised?  How?

According to just about any dictionary of the English language, the definition of compromise is the following:

A settlement of differences in which each side makes concessions.

What concessions have the Tea Party members made?  What have they sacrificed for the bills to pass?  Do they even know what compromise means?  Or do they know, but think that the American public is somehow too stupid to realize that they are full of shit?

They refuse to raise taxes at all, including raising them to their original state, pre-Bush-era cuts.  They refuse to pass a bill that doesn’t focus on cutting spending, especially on entitlement programs.  They refuse to accept the idea of a bill going through that doesn’t include a “balanced budget amendment”.  These are things that they refuse to pass a bill over.  They won’t give these up.

And shockingly the Democrats, who they accuse of being hard-liners, have agreed (under duress) to make some cuts to programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.  The Democrats have agreed to cut spending, instead of raising taxes.  The Democrats have agreed to work with them and to present alternate ideas.  Every time anyone seems to suggest that the GOP give up anything, somehow we end up hearing yet another tantrum by Cantor, Boehner, and any members elected under the banner of the Tea Party.

If Democrats don’t agree to everything that they want or to enough things that are wanted, then the American public gets to hear about how put upon the GOP is during this whole debate/discussion.  The GOP goes on and on about how butthurt they are in this whole process.  If they’re getting what they want, with the minority party agreeing to do things that will be unpopular with its own base, then I don’t exactly see why they are whining.

Honestly, it infuriates me that the Republican politicians in this country get to whine about the country’s debt.  Weren’t these the same people who chose to increase spending while cutting the revenue source?  Did they not see how that might cause a problem?  Are they unable to understand that you can’t just keep spending money without putting any funds into the bank?

And it bugs me that there is this continuing discussion of running the country like a business.  How many businesses exist 10 years after they make a policy that will cause them to go into the red so significantly?  How many have 1 department that has 535 people who refuse to do their jobs on a continuing basis, but continue to be paid and continue to keep their jobs without fear of being fired?  Any business that was run like that wouldn’t continue to exist.  Any employees who behaved like these politicians do would be fired and they would not be getting any sort of help getting a better job later.  (In some industries, they would probably be blacklisted after this kind of snafu.)

Ugh.  Clearly, they don’t get what their jobs are, nor do they understand what simple words like compromise mean.