Demtenjeep has just given me what I'm going to say to mine when I call them tomorrow for the umpteenth time.

I hope everyone does.

My pleas will fall on deaf ears. I am "blessed" with Pat Roberts, Jerry Moran and that new fuck Ron Estes that replaced Mike Pompeo

if I wasn't on anti-anxiety I would probably be feeling a LOT worse

Bullshit.

Mike Mulvaney, the scummiest scum ever to come out of a South Carolina swamp just said that type two diabetics didn't deserve health insurance coverage. I am a type 2 diabetic. I could go one of several ways. Heart attack, stroke, complications from amputations, kidney failure. Or I could get lucky and just go blind. Since I'm 69 and on Medicare it might be awhile before I get my healthcare ripped away, but getting rid of Medicare is definitely on the Radical Republican agenda.

Right now almost 70% of all non-elderly Americans are insured through the workplace. A significant portion of those actually have fairly decent insurance, most of them employed by large companies. Is becoming one of them really totally impossible for both of you? Only one of you needs that one job...

Another thing you can do is move to a blue state that will offer its own ACA-type insurance coverage AND good Medicaid coverage. Look around. If you're already in one, maybe be cautiously hopeful while you wait to see what happens? And absolutely research everything your tax dollars do for people right there for assistance. If you're not in a progressive state, maybe start a list of which states are likely to set up their own healthcare programs in future and begin examining possibilities?

With your serious health problems and being at least 15 years out from Social Security and Medicare, both of which are also in danger, if things continue to go wrong perhaps you should join the many who may be doing that anyway.

Btw, I have health problems myself, and my husband and I have already learned we can live very happily in a old mobile home on pretty but inexpensive land. This wasn't accidental. Losing our nice, large home and savings someday to medical bills was a real possibility before the ACA, and now of course still could be. I even occasionally look around me here and imagine what especially treasured possessions I'd keep, not morbidly but pleasantly as I imagine simplifying. The one we purchased for vacations is in a purplish-red state, though, so eyes open, ready to rethink if needed.

trust me, I would have already

but we are "stuck"

You've said it's a matter of life and death. You have a right to take care of yourself, even if it requires others to make sacrifices.

Serious as your condition is, new medical advances are also likely to continue to increase both your wellbeing and your viable, decent lifespan. Just as they already have, or should have had you benefited from them.

And it isn't so easy to move sometimes. People have family obligations, there are costs to consider. For example, if your home is already paid for, you might be financially unable to move to another state and start paying rent or buy a new home.

So yes, it's a shame that anyone has to think about this at all, let alone that may now be millions facing these difficult problems.

She's 50 years old, Maryland.

Last edited Sun Jun 25, 2017, 09:21 PM - Edit history (2)

I don't know her personal circumstances, but I do know people in that situation for all sorts of reasons.

State they prefer. So much for protections on pre existing conditions and lifetime caps...

But I have deep empathy for your situation, demtenjeep. My 65-yo wife has advanced ovarian cancer, and is not a candidate for either chemo or surgery. The usual cause of death in this situation is bowel obstruction, which is an agonizing death. She has made alternate plans.

My heart breaks when I think of the number of Americans that will be forced to take an early exit because of lack of care.
This is not how a rich, modern nation is supposed to behave. It's barbarism.

It's gonna break your heart, my friend.

and I'm on dialysis at the pleasure of Medicare. It is very expensive. I am old (76), not at all rich and disabled and female. If Medicare dries up, so do I. Daily dialysis is what is keeping me alive. If I am forced to stop dialysis, I will die.

Are you not covered through your job? I have several friends who are teachers. All are covered through work.

We now live in such a mean world, so mean.

I don't know how I will go. But why does that matter?

How everyone else goes is just as important. We are
bound holistically, and no person is an island.

Let's face it, the current system is busted and will bankrupt our nation if it continues at the current rate. Something like 20+% of our gdp is going towards healthcare, with the top 5% of patients costing 50% of that. All of that money has to come from somewhere. Medicine has evolved to the point where it can keep very sickly people alive, but at a cost of hundreds of thousands per year. Is that even sustainable? I only make $30k per year, and that's not even a third of what it takes to keep some of these people alive. Can our society afford to be spending this obscene amount of money on healthcare? I'm not saying that we need to just "let the sick die" as Republicans seem to think, but something is gonna give sooner or later at the current rate. A nation cannot afford to be spending such a significant % of the GDP on healthcare, and all the healthy people are needing to pick up the slack for the sickly who can't pay.

So to the fundamental issue, why is healthcare so damned expensive?
-Not enough doctors?
-Pharma prices out of control?
-Too much spending on hospital administrative costs?
-Too much spending on state of the art equipment?
-Too much fraud?

Hospitals and Doctors will charge what they can get. If you had people just paying out of pocket, the costs would go way down because they could only charge what the market will bear.

Also doctors expect to be highly paid and jealously guard their profession. We pay doctors triple what a doctor earns in France.

People are advised to to see the doctor for every skin bump, every bout of nausea and every fever. Doctors see them because there is a tiny risk they will refuse somebody who is actually sick and be sued. Medical malpractice insurance is insanely expensive and would not be affordable for the average person. The medical profession has been overspecialized so if you go in with a broken finger you may get a tetanus shot at your primary care physician's office and shuttled over to another office to have the injury set. We all get tested for every darned thing under the sun - are badgered into it, even. And those tests and procedures are insanely expensive! Our medical care system is screwed up, royally screwed up.

Pushing for this test and that, totally unrelated to the problem at hand ... have it here at this office not the one closer to your home...

It's a sad and pathetic thing what the oligarchy has done to our healthcare system.

I know that it's not as valuable as it used to be (thank you Brexit) but every Brit resident in the UK has the National Health Service. It's my backup plan, it's also my children's back up plan. Yes there are waiting lists for certain things (knee replacements, non life threatening stuff) but life threatening stuff gets treated. The ACA was a step in the right direction to universal health care. Trump Care is a big step backwards.

I hope something changes soon. Millions of people do not deserve this.

Is there a way to document all these cases? Someone should start a website if there isn't one already (or in the works) to document all these cases with personal videos etc. These f-ers responsible for all this suffering have to be held accountable for this someday if there is justice in this world.

There can't be a single person in this country who won't be touched in one way or another by a similar story.

there are millions of us

My mom's side of the family is full of people who died from it. But, we have the absolute worst drivers in the country here, so one of them could just as easily take me out. Either way,I will go quickly,since I am uninsured, and not a member of the group the republicans deem worthy of living.

SARCASM ALERT!

Seriously, I'm in sort of the same boat... insulin dependent diabetes; you take away my health care, I may die. Right now I have employer subsidized exchange coverage, and am old enough to go on Medicare Part B if I have to, although the drug benefits are not as good as with employer subsidized exchange coverage.

It really riles me when the cons say what a failure Obamacare is. It isn't. From my point of view, it's been very successful. People who think it sucks probably have never faced a serious health issue while on limited income.

Are you insured through your employer? Or is it Medicaid?

for diabetes was to stop eating.
Guess I'll be trying that.
Unless, of course, the MS comes back.
Then, I really don't know...

I am so sorry for your predicament and I wish you the best. There should never be a reason why someone like you should be denied healthcare. I am so angry about this I could spit nails!

There must be a better, more compassionate way. There absolutely must be.

I have a family member just diagnosed with cancer and we are frantically trying to find treatment.

Yours is one of many - TOO many, I might add - that I've read that are all so needless and heart wrenching.

I have nothing uplifting to offer, but I simply wanted to acknowledge the pain and suffering, and merely send you a hug. It's not right, and I'm never going to lose that simply concept.

...i also have a pretty solid idea of how i go now, thanks to Trump and the GOP.

i'm relying on some fairly expensive medicine to keep my MS on hold, but it's not perfect; in a couple years i will likely no longer be able to work. the year after that, my insurance will disappear, and i will no longer be able to afford medicine. then the MS progression resumes full speed - i don't expect to live more than 10 years under these conditions.

if AG Sessions resumes the war on weed, which i use daily to abate symptoms, my muscle spasms will exacerbate the situation.

i intend to go to DC to live out the final months of my life as close to the capitol steps as i can get. the GOP perps can damn well walk past my failing, twitching body every day until it turns into a corpse.

So unless you are aware of that, you might want to check it out. That's another horrible thing that we all have to deal with.

situation. One of the things that pisses me off is that the repukes that want to take our health insurance away and make us die in pain are the fuckers that vote against assisted suicide. It is like haha no prescribed pain meds for you while you become totally incapacitated and not allowed to escape a terrible death. WHY, are they against letting us go in a nicer way?

I don't plan to linger in agony or abandoned in the streets.

I believe in voluntary physician assisted suicide.

Demtenjeep...

but at age 75 I probably don't have to worry about a long and horrible finale. Since I live in Oregon where there is a Death with Dignity law(until the Republicans figure out how to ban it); that would be my plan if my Crohn' s ultimately threatens me. I am currently not doing
very well, so I am realistic. I can share your worries. I wish you well during these God awful times.

I hope things get better for you. I've heard similar stories though.

to read this. Which is why we all need to call out this wealth transfer program posing as healthcare reform. I don't know how I will die but I know that it will happen, one way or another. I also know in my bones that if we cannot afford to offer care and dignity to all our citizens, then we're not much of a society.

Our youngest son suffered a traumatic brain injury nearly 20 years ago. We had insurance but his medical bills were staggering. He's alive and doing well but he's a walking pre-existing condition.

This is why we fight.

I am so sorry for all the people on this thread who will have to make the choice between suicide and prolonged suffering if TrumpDeathCare passes.