But sometimes having my life threatened makes me irritable.
I got into a political/economics argument Sunday, at a party at a friends' home, the party meant to celebrate a contract their company had received which even includes some work for my benefactor, "dburr" . I could not be happier about the contract. This will at least extend dburr's unemployment benefits, which is at least 50% of what we have been living on (the rest being my tiny contribution towards my own support, and charity from family and friends.) It is wonderful news for everyone involved.
We don't know what to do about dburr's health insurance, which runs out in June, or how to get on a firmer footing, but this is becoming a one-month-at-a-time economic situation. He was laid off from a very good tech job in mid-November. Brother, can you spare a dime. He's a legally blind albino but being so disabled did not protect him from the layoff axe. His being the one who keeps me off the street, and my having systemic lupus, didn't help either.
I DO know better than to argue politics at parties, especially business parties, especially when dburr is at last being given some work! Sheesh! I'm not sure how many or what kind of apologies I'm going to have to write before I can get a good night's sleep again!
But I ran into someone at the party who believes the solution to California's budget problems is to make more budget cuts--and to not even consider increasing taxes of any kind. And I am just so tired of the cuts always being directed first at the poor and the sick. Since I'm both poor and sick, I take this personally.
I'm not sure how many people know that our governor and legislators assume that anyone in our state who really needs things like prescription drugs to survive can get onto the Medi-Cal program and, if they don't get SSI from Social Security (screwing over those of us who get a very similar benefit, SSDI, btw), can somehow live on $600/month. If we get more than that, the money becomes our monthly medical deductible. Those of us with high medical costs thus become desperate street people, if we are well enough to survive that. I already know that I am not. Admittedly, I will be much cheaper for the state once I'm dead, unless I can haunt somebody.
This dire event didn't happen to me (yet) because I have been getting my medical care from Medicare and my prescription drugs from Medicare Part D, which is what my SSDI eligibility qualifies me for. One problem has been that my Medicare copays for doctor visits and procedures are frequently more than I can pay. Mom has been paying for most of them and this is a hardship for her at her age. I also have no one to replace her role in doing this should she really need to say no one of these days. This is so unfair to her. She will be 76 this year!
Another problem is that Medicare Part D is the prescription drug plan from hell. In order to get the drug companies to play along, there were some very bizarre provisions built into this plan. One is the "doughnut hole", a huge coverage gap that beneficiaries hit and have to spend their way out of if, again, they have significant prescription drug costs. I hadn't hit that abyss yet because my SSDI income was always low enough to qualify for the "low income subsidy (LIS)" which allows one to avoid that hole.
However, this year, Congress thought to help those of us on SSDI by passing a record increase in our monthly benefit. Yes, supposed to HELP us, but not if it bumps us out of Medicare Part D LIS...and an additional problem is that the so-beloved governor of my state, Arnold Schwarzenegger, very suddenly stopped paying the Medicare Part B premiums for a lot of us. Medicare Part A is for hosptialization, B is for doctors and procedures, D is for drugs (roughly). But the program I was on that kept me out of the doughnut hole for Part D required that my state be paying my Part B premium. Why? Who knows why! Probably saves some budget some blood money somewhere.
So whether I avoid the doughnut hole ended up depending on what was declared to be the Federal Poverty Level for 2009, which is always a crap shoot, since the FPL long ago lost any realistic connection with what it costs to live in many areas of our country. By FPL 2009, it looks like I might just squeak by to qualify for LIS--but I am not SURE. And even if I make it through this time I could easily lose eligibility next year (just as I lost eligibility a few years ago, due to tiny cost-of-living increases in my SSDI benefit, for the Aged, Blind, and Disabled program, which gave me life-preserving Medi-Cal without those impossible-to-pay monthly premiums that take income down to $600/month--before there was a Medicare Part D.)
I had thought to get a reprieve by spending money for insurance I can't use (in this case a really rotten dental insurance program that ends up covering nothing) because that is one of the allowable deductions that can be used to reduce countable income for eligibility for benefit programs. (Yes, our system has desperately poor people looking for ways to get rid of some of what little income they have. This really does happen, all the time.) But the FPL is low enough this time to get me into trouble despite having done this.
I'm in a very vulnerable position. My prescription plan is already sending me letters letting me know that they think I will soon owe them $3948.77. They kindly tell me that others can pay this on my behalf. Ah yes, I can ask all those rich people I know who are so personally invested in my survival...like they exist. I can't live without my meds, but that simply does not matter.
Another cut from Governor S. and I won't even have a hope.
I just got a recent diagnosis of diabetes and per medical instructions have been pricking my finger constantly to see what affects my blood sugar the most. I thought it would be carb intake, but it turns out my blood sugar soars with stress. I took a month off from reading my mail and got it under control. But now it is in the stratosphere.
Before anyone says it...my drugs are NOT covered under private drug company charity programs.
Also, I have more than one diagnosis and I think at least three of them are automatic exclusions from private health insurance here in CA.
Because I am Medicare-eligible, I do not qualify for MRMIP.
This stuff is very complicated. I already called my local HICAP office for help. What a nasty woman I got when I finally received a callback. She wouldn't listen to my questions, much less answer them.
Anyway. When I hear calls for more cuts, from ANYBODY, and I know where this legislature and this governor like to make them, I know they are calling for my death, whether they know it or not, or care or not. And this really stresses me out.
People close to me love to remind me that we have "the best health care system in the world", and when I hear THAT I want to know when, how, and why our fourth estate
sold their collective soul to the devil and stopped telling the voters what the results of some of their elected officials' actions really are.
Who WILL tell the people? No one believes me.
However, I still favor a single-payer GOVERNMENT RUN (someone please pass out smelling salts for the Republicans) health care system. If we were all in the same boat, instead of just the poor and the sick against The System, I really think an awful lot of what is just plain stupid would be fixed by now. And of course Medicare is expensive. Any insurance plan which were confined to the elderly and the disabled/chronically ill would be. The healthier people are, of course, paying for the executive salaries etc. for the private insurance companies while the taxpayer gets stuck with people like me. Sweet deal they got, no?
Private insurance companies have done people like me no favors. They were fine with letting me die way back in 1986. Every year I've lived since then has been no thanks to them whatsoever. Btw, an estimated 18,000 to 25,000 die YEARLY now because they can't get health coverage in this country.
I do not understand why so many Americans are willing to pay more than any other country pays for health care per capita and yet live with this Russian roulette.
I certainly had no idea I was going to get sick and end up in this mess.
And, if you are an American citizen living in the USA...neither do you, my friend. Neither do you!