I was angry earlier tonight. I wanted to write an open letter to Obama and to the Republicans in the House. I lost it. I don't mean I got angrier, I mean... I lost it. I forgot what made me angry. (There were too many choices..)
Some one thing or the other is always making me mad with the government. It may have been the news that now Blue Cross is raising their rates and my rates are higher still. It may have been about Boehner crying.. I'm done with his crying, he is a VERY rich man. I can't find a job. It may have been about the Republicans swearing to read the entire Constitution, to which they are so 'devoted' and in the reading omitted all the controversial passages. Maybe I was angry that two elected congressmen decided to forgo the swearing in and were not legal to vote.. Constitutionally wise. (Um, their platform...)
I don't remember now. The day was all so silly and laughable, and yet... not. These are the people who will decide our fate. I'm furious.
When did we dumb down? I remember my 6th grade teacher telling me we could read and understand the newspapers because they wrote at a 6th grade level to reach everyone. Is that still true?
What happened to the Fourth Estate? I'm VERY disappointed. You all talk about banks and stocks and things I know nothing of. The intricacies of Washington are of NO interest. I need to pay my winter heating bill. I need some income. We are small. We want work. We want healthcare. Everything else is superfluous. Speak up and help us.
I need more than a part-time job. I need to pay for my family's health insurance. I am HAPPY to pay the property tax and other tax that supports my fire dept. and police dept. I support highway improvements. I know the car companies can be more brilliant (I have faith) and I am done with our dependence on oil. Medicine is a whole other bag of beans. Why is every new prescription cost prohibitive? I live this. I know.
My dear husband has been on a VERY expensive therapy for MS. The insurance company pays for all but the co-pay doctor visit. The therapy is not working. We are about to try an oral medicine. The co-pay is nearly $400 per month. Yeah, we have that disposable income. It is sitting, um, right over there, under the couch. The drug company contacted me and said if I could prove we were too poor, they would pay the entire amount. K. Gonna do that. Gonna tell a drug company we are poor. Really. Guess we are.
The point is he needs to try every new therapy. The other point is ... the cost is beyond the pale. His last therapy was an infusion, extremely expensive to the insurance company and free to us, and his new therapy is a pill... oh..$400 dollars co-pay to us a month. So, the drug company will look at my tax returns and decide if we can have the drug for free...I will take advantage.
But. It feels like a scam. I've been through this before with MS drugs. The companies give it to us for a reduced cost and then.. when you really think it is working, they change the rules. I'm a sceptic. I hate this.
I'm reduced to negotiating the health of my husband.
I'm blind-sided and we pay.
National Healthcare was a solution. Congress and the President have failed us. This new Congress is going to fuck us even more.
AND I still don't have a job, Mr. Boehner.
mkk. 1/7/11
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Oh boy, I am with you. I don't have a job. Don doesn't have a job. And now, we have no health care - for the first time ever. What the hell do we do? When I heard Boehner speak out against Obama's health care reform and then heard Brian Williams ask him about the millions that don't have health care - Boehner didn't even address that, he tried to evade it. I think this country is in the worst shape morally that I've ever experienced.
ReplyDeletexo
Claudia
Oh man Mary - you sure opened up a huge can of worms with your post here. Terrible injustice our so called gov't is handing us. From healthcare to education - what a mess! No one can put their partisanship aside and get on the same page and work for the people! What a bunch of disconected cry babies our so-called leaders are. Obama should get angry - really, really angry and get some changes made already - especially providing a great education to our children. A good education would help solve many problems facing our country. But no, it's more important to preserve the rich folks' retirements and taxes. Families that have to weigh the health of their families lives against their income is really just so sad. Maybe we should look at the way Canada runs things, right? They have less crime overall and free health care...they must be doing something right! My husband and I want to be positive about our future options - but with the ditch getting wider it's difficult. Gone are the days of picking up our bags and moving to a different city. Everyone is stuck right now - it sucks!! Whew. Thanks for letting me rant here. Denise!
ReplyDeleteMary, your post made me sad and angry at the same time.....made me want to cry and shout out at the same time. You've said things that should be heard in Congress by all those supposed leaders who have everything the rest of us want....to be secure in our home, to have health, and the ability to support ourselves with a job.
ReplyDeleteMary,
ReplyDeleteI feel as if I've experienced a mind meld with you. I do not understand how the world can be the way it is. Of course, almost forty years ago I could not understand how my country could elect Richard Nixon, either. So maybe in some ways nothing has changed. But damn it, after in many ways feeling as if we'd come so far, to find myself looking in one direction at a moneyed elite whose success at gaming the investment or banking system out of greed has put them in a position of perpetual power and in the other direction at uneducated, powerless people who soak up vitriol and lies without the ability to think critically or recognize out and out falsehoods - it is incomprehensible that this is what the United States has become. The thoughtful, those of us fortunate enough to have received a quality education, who work for ourselves and our families, but who also see the human community as one that should be supporting one another, as a group that benefits from the basic well being of all - we seem to be becoming more and more marginalized. It makes me angry and deeply sad.
Terri