Posted on 04/18/2009 3:00:57 PM PDT by malkee
It was a crisp and brilliant autumn day last October when the medical and financial crises with which my family had successfully, if barely, coped for seven years became a catastrophe.
..My husband had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2002, a year after our daughter was paralyzed in a horse-riding accident. His balance had deteriorated until he fell two or three times at home last summer. In the face of his diminishing physical condition, a single fall could result in disastrous injury. We scheduled an appointment with his neurologist in Washington.
We pulled up to the main entrance of the hospital after the two-hour drive from our home near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. My husband opened his door, grabbed the roof of the car and began to pull himself out as I walked around to help him. I was too late. In an instant--time slowed enough for me to see the danger but raced ahead too fast for me to reach him--he lost his grip and fell to the concrete, shattering his hip, breaking his femur and causing internal bleeding that kept him in the hospital for months
(Excerpt) Read more at thenation.com ...
I don’t feel sorry for all idiots but I do feel sorry for these idiots. Chalk it up to “feelings” lol
Regardless of who or what should pay these medical expenses I see an arrogant (baby killing) woman who has been ground down and humbled. She seems to be broke....out of money....And she is telling the world which is painful
A presstitute interviewed a famous jockey named Eddie Arcaro.........
Great story there!!!
“Care for them, absolutely. Assume financial responsibility, probably not.”
That’s OK. I’ll pay for them. That’s OK that I am taking care of 7 of my own, I’ll pay for your two.
Post like yours make me think we are lost.
I hate when people just assume that everything will just be the same! I wiish they would read a little before assuming things. It’s not a coinsidense that more people die from cancers in Canada and the UK, it IS because of their system of “cost effective” medicine. In other words you are not worth what it costs to fix you so you die!
From the title one would think the writer would say how universal health care would have made any of this different. But, no, she simply states that her situation was hell and somebody needs to fix the system. In fact if she had investigated further or thought beyond her situation, nothing would have made these two devastating ordeals any easier. And if she had taken time she would find out, nowhere in the world would either of these two received better care. Health insurance or not.
We pulled up to the main entrance of the hospital after the two-hour drive from our home near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.
Does she think that specialists should be within a block of her home? She should be thankful her insurance allowed a specialist. Does she think under universal health care her two hour trip would have been shorter? The answer is her trip would probably be longer with a much longer wait. That is if the specialist does not decide in some other career because they have no intention of working for the government. There are not enough doctors now. Add in 30 million illegals, not paying a dime for healthcare, government will have to ration care. There may be enough money but not enough doctors. Already physicians are wondering if the million for medical school is worth possibly making nothing with medicaid and medicare payments.
The co-pays, uncovered care and other costs had already reached $8,000, and we had virtually nothing left.
They had a maximum out of pocket of $8,000.00 which is common in health insurance. Most hospitals have charity care. If she was below a certain level of income the hospital would write off her bill. Usually 400% of poverty level. If she supported her daughter that would be around $48,000.00 for 3.
She could also make payments. Nothing the hospital can do. They will threaten and they want you to fill out forms and sign here, but just make monthly payments if that is all you can do.
Seven years of caring for my husband and our daughter, who had no insurance at the time of her accident, had all but exhausted our savings.
The minute her husband was out of the hospital the first time, or when he was diagnosed, everything they own should have gone into a trust. Actually before something like this happens, everyone should have a trust account. House, savings, IRA's. The daughter qualifies for state disability, Social security disability and medicaid.
He was discharged into an assisted-living facility, where most of the cost was excluded from both his private long-term-care insurance and Medicare. At $9,000 a month, the bills accumulated quickly.
Not one Universal health care coverage discussed by anyone pays for long term care. In fact it is specifically ruled out.
The time is drawing near when, job or no job, the expenses will simply be more than we have. I am coming full circle, back to where so many women's lives begin and end-
What does being a woman have to do with medical crisis in the family?
-and where my career as an activist began: jobless, unsure how to pay the next month's bills
They say that is why Planned parenthood is into abortion. It is very lucrative.
I forged deep and lasting friendships with some of the most powerful political figures of the past thirty years.
She sold herself after a crisis to politicians who would use her like they did with Roe.
Not many Republicans were among them. But there ought to have been more--
No, we value life.
ironically enough, I have led precisely the life Republicans claim to value.
huh?
I started as a single welfare mother,
Uh no! We get two and three jobs before accepting welfare. Real women get over the sap who left them and not whine about it. Or pity themselves.
He purchased quality health insurance, including long-term-care insurance, so he would not be a financial burden to others.
Uh wait a minute.........is this the same guy? He had long term healthcare insurance? He purchased or it was part of his teaching contract?
to say nothing of the fact that our daughter probably would never again be able to support herself through full-time work.
Her daughters age, living away from home, she qualifies for medicaid. With full disability she would get social security and medi-care in time. It would not be wealth building but we have a system for this type of medical crisis.
That ended in October. We quickly learned that not even the most frugal planning is enough to cope with surging healthcare costs. The long-term-care insurance barely covers a fraction of his long-term care.
With the long term care plan, social security disability, medicare and medicaid? Medicare would set a very low cost for the care. His lifetime care should have been enough to cover the rest.
Medicaid will pay for it only after we have liquidated most of our assets.
They tell you that but not true. The home can be put in the wife's name. Everything you own in a trust.
Nor will the situation change for anyone until political leaders get serious about comprehensive healthcare reform.
Sorry your husband's care is not cost effective. He needs to just get use to the pain. But you have your money.
underinsured. It is not the young or the old. My husband had excellent health coverage;
She wants comprehensive universal coverage BETTER than her husbands great health insurance?
Our story also illustrates the unique challenges women face in the healthcare system, as in the economy at large.
This is not about being male or female.
In addition, women disproportionately, but hardly exclusively, understand the perverse economic choices the healthcare system imposes.
You understand very little of it now.
These two incidences would be devastating under any health care plan. Her political buddies she met in activism must want to use her again. How very sad she knows so little about what she is saying but ready to make money off of it.
In my research I found multi-millionaires hiding their assets when their spouse got a diagnosis of a long term illness. Once the money is in trust, they get whatever care that is needed and paid for by taxpayers. That sucks but that is the system we have. sadly it is the wealthy who knows the system and gets the legal help to hide their assets.
If it is in The Nation, it must be a LIBERAL article!
I just got through adding up all the out of pocket expenses we had last year, as a result, mostly, of my treatment for atrial fibrillation, including a Cardiac Catheter Ablation. We spent well over $13,000, over and above the $13K we'd spent on our health insurance policy.
I'm sorry Kate and her family are dealing with these issues, but socialized medicine won't solve it, because all that will do is cause her to have to pay MORE in taxes from whatever money she ends up making, so she'll have even LESS take home pay, and even more nightmares in trying to deal with the government health care bureaucracy. Not to mention the fact that with government run health care, her husband and daughter might even be denied treatment, because of their pre-existing, hopeless conditions. I wonder what she'd think about that?
Not at all. There are communal resources which we all support and fund. They are designed to support the indigent and those without resources. That is what they are there for. It is no shame and not wrong to allow them to do their job.
Should something similar happen to my children, I will use those resources as they were intended and use my meager funds to provide what the system can not or will not.
How does that make us lost?
I am sensitive to not paying for your own medical care if possible, this because 20 years ago or so I was talking to a friend. He said,
“Yeah, I could pay for the birth of my daughter but it would be difficult, so I’ll let the government pay for her.”
The people who paid for his daughter was you and me, and I was already paying cash for the birth of my first daughter. It was difficult, my wife and I had to sacrifice but we did it and to hear yet another person say, “I’ll let someone else pay for my medical care” burns me.
That attitude leads to socialism and communism.
Kate Michelman was president of NARAL Pro-Choice America from 1985 to 2004.
SHEEEESH
With that said, the Grace of Conversion can be painful. Saint Paul was blinded and thrown from his horse.
Graces are not always a pleasant thing. For example Father John Corapi road to becoming a priest was via the path of Homelessness.
I assure you that being a homeless drug addict is not a pleasant experience, but it is one that brought Father John Corapi closer to God and on the road to the priesthood.
Kate Michelman has been given two chances to convert -- the injury to her daughter (which for some reason she did not abort) and the injury to her husband...
If God had wanted her not to suffer this, He could have easily prevented the injury...
In my own life, I have had a number of doctors claim that I am lucky to be alive.
Considering I had 99% blockage in my heart last suffer in one spot, 90% in another and 80% in another and yet another bad blockage spot, I clearly could have left this world.
But God had a different plan for me...
A source of comments for my hospitalization was the fact I rode a bicycle to the emergency room when I thought I was having heart problems...
[No. I don't have a car currently, and I did not want to alarm anyone if this was a false alarm...)
Compare my situation with hers -- with the because of the Grace of God, I breezed through Open Heart Surgery, and I am back to bicycle riding...
I may have trials in my life... But I offer any suffering up for the Greater Glory of God.
I think Ms. Michaelman has a much greater cross to bear—the souls of the millions of aborted children killed at her behest.
This is exactly WHY we shouldn’t have socialized medicine—why should the taxpayers pay millions for injuries resulting from voluntary acts such as riding a horse?
Christopher Reeve was on Ms. Michaelman’s page vis a vis life but he never advocated, to my knowledge, for socialized medicine; probably because he knows he’d be dead like poor Natasha Richardson had he been under a socialized system when he was injured.
Wow Robin you really have a way with words. Kudos!
Amen to that! Have you noticed that most family practitioners have stopped or limited receiving new medicare/medicaid cases?
Too much red tape, employee expense.... not to mention the medicaid cases are the ones who are most likely to sue you out of existence...
Docs I know are more willing to treat and work with "pay-as-you-go" patients who have no insurance, but don't qualify for gov't subsidized programs.
This statement made me sigh. I can tell you she probably "opted" for assisted-living.... which is notoriously expensive. Why not a nursing home? Medicare will skill them for 21-90 days...according to their needs. Why not just go home and have PT/healthcare staff come to you? Medicaid/Medicare and most private insurances pay for this because it's cheaper. This whole article smells to high heaven...
It was a crisp and brilliant autumn dayAw c'mon Kate, you can do better than that.
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.."I'm suuuuuuure Charles Dickens won't mind. Plus even his Lawyers are dead now so there's no way he can't sue for plagiarism.
The baby she aborted might have been the one who could have been the most helpful to her now.
She will never know.
Look....if she had put her FAITH in the LORD when she found herself pregnant with no husband, if she would have said YES! to life, I truly believe her life would be soooo much better! Not that God doesn't give good people burdens and hardships, but if she wouldn't have killed her baby....(hey she could have given life to a SUPER STAR that would have PAID ALL HER BILLS).......
She needs to get down on her knees to God and ask forgiveness and redemption.
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