The Way I See It

• So Obamacare is imploding.  The American Care Act is proposed. Insurance companies have obviously secretly paid off the politicians and the Unions. We the patients aged 64 and above are pushed into a hole until we either go bankrupt or die, whichever comes first.

So I worked for more than thirty years.  Twenty-one years of my life I worked in a Union owned environment of Higher Education….a University staff member.  At the age of 60 I became disabled as a result of years of my body experiencing health issues, body structure breakdown and I suppose lousy genes.  Through no fault of my own my body could no longer withstand the simplest of tasks and since I always put my all into my work, I had to retire early at a reduced pension and take my “reduced by age” social security as a disabled American.  My spouse still works so my total income was such that any other assistance is not allowed.  It didn’t matter that with this scenario our bills stayed the same and we continue to struggle to pay them every month, barely getting by from paycheck to paycheck.  We never made enough money to have savings and when I became ill we exhausted our 401 contributions we had made in our jobs for more than twenty years.

We weren’t complaining though because we knew we were doing better than many others.  We could keep the roof over our heads and the food on our table.  We were able for a time to afford the doctor co-pays and the co-pays of our required medications.  That is until the regulations enacted by my health insurance coverage pushed me head first into a giant hole dug by the insurance companies that covered me.

Paying those Union dues every paycheck, contributing to social security for those 30 years and working my butt off all my life only counted for a short period of time.  The song by the Beatles that includes the line, “Will you still feed me, will you still need me when I’m 64?” became my mantra since the answers from my insurance coverage to maintain my existence was a loud resounding, no!  My prescriptions that keep my body moving to a minimum are no longer affordable since I was pushed into this hole. What once cost me $15 per prescription of three has now risen to $77 per prescription and I am prescribed to take 8 medications daily, some twice a day, others three times a day and others once a day.  I never even took the total on the days I could tolerate the pain that is constantly with me.  Other medications that assist my movement are not covered anymore since I was pushed into the Medicarerx (part D of Medicare) by the insurance company that made a deal with my Union to give them the cheapest premiums to cover their retirees.  As complicated as this sounds the bottom line is the seniors who are not wealthy can now go straight to hell inside the government’s and insurance company’s and Union’s paid for “doughnut hole”  or “Drug tier gap” so the Insurance company CEO’s and their government cronies can get richer.  The funny part is that I never asked for a hand out ever.  Anything I now have is not an entitlement it all was earned by the contribution of my backbone and portions of my salary.  Everything I write about this will probably fall on deaf ears anyway cause until you walk in my shoes you will not care, but I am gonna tell it anyway.

I don’t believe in Universal Healthcare.  That similar system is run in other countries around the world and from personal accounts from people I know and love, I am told they cannot see a doctor most times for months, their medications are provided sparsely and not conveniently, needed lab tests have waiting periods up to a year. So why would anyone willingly choose that for their lives?  Our Medicaid, Medicare, Food Stamp and Prescription Drug programs all seem to be suffering because they are covering far too many people that the economists predicted.  The only solution I see for that problem is to remove all undocumented people from receiving the assistance needed by Americans who were either born disabled or worked their whole lives before becoming disabled and give it back to the system that is suffering.  Provide that needed revenue and put it into programs that cover health insurance for every Veteran in the USA. If that was done, I would do without to give back to them what they sacrificed for us, but that isn’t what is going on in our country. Instead all of us are suffering and paying for the greed, corruption and mismanagement in the Insurance agencies and in the Obamacare act in our government today.

In a  REAL American Health Care Act the following is what it should include:

• Total coverage for pre-existing conditions by all health insurance companies
• comprehensive, high value long term care coverage for severely ill Americans and American seniors
• prescription drug coverage without drug tiers for “common” illnesses as diagnosed and prescribed by physicians
• Fair and equitable insurance premiums available to all Americans across every state in the country
• Medicaid availability for all poverty level Americans
• Medicare for all Social Security American recipients including doctor visits with or without specialties, labs tests, fair priced prescription drugs and long term care for the chronically ill with complete coverage including Nursing care facilities
• Preventive medicine and holistic care access for all Americans who choose it (not mandated by insurance companies)
• Health Savings Plans accessible to all Americans who want it and can afford it from salary deductions (not mandated by businesses and government)
• Available health insurance coverage for the homeless
• Health Insurance coverage for all Veterans of the US Military provided outside of the VA hospitals currently run through the government , but not exclusive of

These are the highlights of a Real American Health Care Act.  These highlighted proposals are the ones that fulfill the needs of Americans over the needs of the CEOs of the Insurance Companies.  These simple, explicit points are what we the people should be sending to our government representatives. This REAL American Health Care Act will take care of the American people far better than the current proposal of the AHCA and far, far better than Obamacare has and would. Let’s talk to the President, the VP, the House and the Congress by copying these points onto a piece of paper and mailing it to each and everyone of them.  Let the voices of the American people shout loud and proud that these are these are the  things we need and want when we are 64!

And that is The Way I See It here in Brooklyn.

K