A friend sent me this. It's a letter that was sent her by a women who has expressed, more eloquently than I ever could, how people are suffering because of the insanities of our current health care system.
The letter writer's name is Susanna. She lives in Missouri. Here is her story and the story of some of the other people in the rural area where she lives. I have edited it slightly for length.
Dear Mr. President, Senators McCaskill and Bond, Representatives Emerson and Blunt and Secretary Sebelius,
I am writing to tell you my story on Health Care and what I think needs to be done. This morning I was at a local restaurant and was speaking to the owner of the place. She is 61, and un-insured. She can’t afford to buy coverage, well more like; she can’t find affordable coverage, because she has pre-existing heart trouble. So no insurance company will offer her a plan except one that is outrageously priced.
Let me back up a moment and tell you about where I live. I live in a small rural county in Missouri. It is Reynolds County. We are in the 8th Congressional District. We are number 425 out of 435 on incomes. Meaning we are one of the poorest districts in the country. ...there is very little in way of employment.... Per capita we are vastly elderly and disabled. We are not just Democrats or Republicans. Most will vote for the person and not the party. We are very bi-partisan. We never see our elected officials come here. They get elected by us and seem to forget that it was the people who voted them into office. Our pleas for help go un-answered.
...My friend Donna runs this little truck stop restaurant with her husband. She has been sick twice and been taken to the hospital and she has no insurance. She has had to pay thousands of dollars out of pocket and has missed very little work, because to miss work means missing income. So off to work everyday at 4 A.M. she goes, 7 days a week. No vacations and only closes completely 1 day a year. She is willing to pay for reasonable coverage. She would buy into Medicaid or Medicare or whatever if she could get coverage. She is basically just one heart attack away form disaster.
Another lady in town had cancer a couple of years ago. Her husband has lost his job and lost his insurance. So of course she can’t get insurance now. She is a cervical cancer survivor and uninsurable....
Well, she has been sick for a while now and was afraid to go to the Doctor because she just knew her cancer was back. Her condition has made her so sick that she has had to close her business down.... The good news on this one is that some friends got together and got enough money to pay for her cancer doctor and she went and got some tests done. She doesn’t have cancer, but she is sick. So she will now need to have some treatments for this new illness. Again no insurance company will cover her.
What about the couple that had over $18,000 in out of pocket insurance premiums and payments last year alone. Granted it is the Medicare payments, the supplement and the part D coverage, as well as the prescription drug costs and the cost of being in the donut hole. These are people in their 70’s. Honestly, I don’t know how they do it.
There is a man who owns his own transmission business. He made a choice, keep his business open and his employees working and cut the insurance. Everyone was happy. At least until about 6 months after cutting the insurance his wife was diagnosed with cancer. They can’t get coverage now. So he is going to lose his business anyway. What a shame.
My Mom is another person with problems. She has Medicare and is on an Advantage HMO. The good news is that she can see her Doctors. The bad news is that she has to decide whether she will pay the bills, the mortgage or buy her meds. She is a stroke victim and suffers COPD...
Maybe I should be the one to take care of her? I do what I can when I can. I am disabled. I have 3 discs that are inoperable in my back. I am on disability. I do have Medicare and am on an Advantage PPO. I’ll go into that in a moment. As for taking care of my Mom, I get $588 a month. That doesn’t leave me much extra money to give away. But I do what I can when I can.
This donut hole is terrible. It will bankrupt a bunch of families. This doesn’t need to be slowly closed; it needs to be closed right away... When you are on a fixed income, any extra expenses are dangerous... Like my Mom. If she has to spends any extra, she goes in the hole each month.
...then she doesn’t have enough money to pay for food or her bills or her mortgage.
OK, now my story. As I said I get $588 a month. I am paying $113 for my advantage plan. This same exact plan last year cost me only $45. It is through Humana. Last year I got all my prescriptions through mail order and they are generic and they cost me nothing. This year I have a $310 deductible for my meds. So I am in the hole $68 a month for the added cost to my plan and then $310 for my drugs for a total yearly loss of $1126. That is a lot of money to me...
Yes I am married and my husband works. But because of my back problems it would cost a fortune to add me to his insurance. His employer even has a clause that states that I would have to not get treatment for one year for my back before I could be covered. We would still have to pay the big bucks to them, but receive no medical treatment. I can’t do that. I need pain meds and I need tests done every so often.
I never wanted this. I would love to be able to work. I just don’t know one day to the next how I am going to be feeling. It is a terrible way to live. Sometimes I just want to stay in bed and let the world go by without me. I know my husband would be better off without my medical problems and me. But we love each other and we are happy. So lucky for me he wants me around and lucky for him I adore him.
My big issue is that I don’t think you all are listening to all of us out here who live in the real world. We want healthcare. We don’t want it handed to us; we want something that is affordable. I say Public Option is a good thing. Some say Universal Medicine like they have in Ireland and France is good. I like that too. But we as a country need to do something. The cost of healthcare will bankrupt this country before to long. I know that the Republicans don’t see or believe that, but I am living in an area that sees it every day...
Something needs to be done. We need help. I see you all fighting and arguing, but who is asking the people. NO ONE has asked us what we need. The Democrats go to talk to the Democrats and won’t listen to what the other side has to say. The Republicans are no better. They go and tell the most outrageous lies and distort the truth and their supporters then carry those same lies and mistruths back to their friends. I mean really, you can fix the Healthcare problem and it won’t cost a penny more anywhere. Yeah right. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I can’t believe that.
We need the men and women who are our elected representatives to fight for us. But first they need to listen to what we are saying. Healthcare Reform is needed. Insurance Reform is needed. We can fix these problems if we all sit at the table and talk through our differences. Don’t add all kinds of junk to the bill that has nothing to do with either Healthcare or Insurance Reform. Then it won’t cost as much. We all know that. Let’s go back to the right way of doing business in this country. Make bills that say and do what they are meant for. Healthcare has nothing to do with counting butterflies in the summer or any other silly attachment that is added on. ...
The insurance companies should not be allowed to raise their fees more than 10% every 2 years. Believe me they will still be making billions in profits. Everybody is out to make money off of someone else. My husband just had surgery on his neck. He was in the hospital for 26 hours and they billed the insurance company over $75,000.00. The insurance company paid over $44,000.00 and the hospital wrote off $25,000.00. We are paying off $3700 in payments. If they could write off $25,000, then why not just charge that amount in the first place. If we didn’t have insurance we’d be bankrupt.
You guys all sit nice and comfortable making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from my tax dollars, yet you don’t listen to me. You pay next to nothing for your healthcare and are able to get the top doctors in the world to take care of you and your families. Why am I not entitled to that same care? Why are you different than me? Because you are elected. Remember it is a job just like my husband has. Only he works for Wal-Mart and you work for me. I can either rehire you or hire someone new. Right now it is my feeling to fire everyone and start my "company" anew. The only thing is that even if I elected someone new to your positions, you would still be better off than any of the people I mentioned in this letter. You get to keep your healthcare benefits. Lucky you. You will never know the heart ache of trying to pay your bills.
The President has laid out the plan. He has spoken about it in plain English. It makes sense what he is talking about. Stop trying to bloke everything he does. Do what you were hired to do. You are there for the people, by the people. That shouldn’t be too hard to remember. Sit and listen to what is being said in the coffee shops in all corners of the country. Yes, there are some that say the government should not be the baby sitters of all Americans. But the government can make laws that would stop the abuses from happening. Some say that they don’t like the costs of the reform. I know it is going to cost more money than any single person can imagine, but the risks out weigh the cost. In the long run, it won’t cost half as much as doing nothing will cost.
Jobs will be lost due to cut backs because the small businesses can’t afford to pay for healthcare on all their employees. The small restaurant I mentioned before, they have no employees because of that very reason. They can’t afford insurance for themselves let alone for the single mother that used to work there. So yes, like the President said, jobs are tied to healthcare. Costs of food, medicines, and actually anything that we pay for is tied to healthcare. ...
Finally, I want to thank you for your taking the time to read this. I actually don’t believe that you Mr. President have read this or Ms. McCaskill, Ms, Emerson, Ms. Sebelius or any other actual sitting representative has read this, but maybe your aides will think that this is important enough for you to see. If so, thank you for understanding that this is important to me and all the people that I know. We don’t want reform for nothing, we are willing to pay, and we just want to be covered by insurance that we can afford.
Sincerely,
Susanna