It's been one struggle after another. Just today I received a notice from Express Scripts. It seems that neither medicare nor tricare will pay a penny of a $70,000 bill consisting of 14 doses of a special anti-biotic that my 95 year old mom's doctor ordered for her to take. I can't understand how an anti-biotic IV would cost $70K nor why my mom's doctor of internal medicine would order a medication like that. And finally, why did my dad risk his life in WWII as a B-17 pilot, getting shot down over Germany, getting shot by German soldiers when he parachuted to the ground, spending more than a year in a German POW camp where his leg bones didn't get treated or knit together, and then flying planes in Vietnam years later, only to have his wife be denied medical coverage by the federal government. If we're not insured for this life-saving anti-biotic then we're not really insured and medicare and tricare are a complete joke.

And like you, it's not just one crisis. It's been one after another seemingly on a weekly basis, most of it relating to doctors and their complete ineffectiveness and incompetence and health care coverage. As each new week starts, I've cringed while asking myself what new catastrophe will it be this week?

I'm sorry for your loss.

And yes, it's Ukrainian. I've had family killed in the uprisings in March, and yes, I have my own feelings about what's going on there, but in the words of the Stephanie Miller Show, I'm going to keep them in my thought-bubble. . .

Paula