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Join Date 05/2003
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Is Healthcare the Issue that will Doom President Bush?

OR: Will the System Become Cash and Kerry

June 25, 2004 8:28:10 AM from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums
The American healthcare systems (it would be inappropriate to say there was only one) have begun to reach the point where the costs to the retired (actually, those over 40 probably qualify) that Americans are beginning to see that comprehensive reform of the system(s) is necessary before they become bankrupt. Most Americans are fairly sure it is not on the Republicans priority list to do so and President Bush is the flagbearer for the party. Make no mistake about it, the retired vote and the costs they are incurring for the healthcare they receive are becoming unbearable.

Many will immediately point out that the President has bigger fish to fry on his plate and that the Congress should be working on this issue and should be taking the blame if there are failures more than the President. Let's accept for a minute that this is true and then point out that Mr. Bush continually talks about leadership, his leadership, and that when we hear about the focus of why failure is occuring, it's much easier to fire the coach, excuse me, President, than the team, excuse me again, the Congress.

So what is the problem with healthcare that is so serious? Isn't it the best care in the world? Don't we have more doctors than we can shake a stick at doing everything from specializing in footcare to blue nevises (a type of mole)? Sure, and this article is not against doctors, or hospitals, or healthcare, per se. What this article hopes you will see is that the costs of the system are beginning to threaten the people who need it the most with financial suicide.

Let me give you an example that is symptomatic of the problem, but is hardly the only one. A retired couple has an income of $20,000 (social security and small pension) and have medicare (Parts A & plus a holdover plan because the husband worked for 40 years with the same company. So, the couple have a drug prescription plan that covers $3000 per year.

The husband has high blood pressure and takes Toprol XL which retails at $100 per month (30 pills) so $1200 per year. The wife takes medicine to control her sugar which costs $80 per month (30 pills) or $960 per year. So, they have covered $2160 in expenses by their plan for an out-of-pocket cost of $480 (their co-pays). Everything is fine until one of them has a heart arythmia and has to go into the hospital. Now, the cost of the medicine (which runs several thousand) is covered first by their presecription plan (oops....over the limit) then hospital care insurance and then, the policy holders. Now, they have no coverage and each month have to pay $180 to continue living.

I could not find any statistics for this but my research in my church said the average couple over 60 had no less than 8 prescriptions filled per month at a cost of over $1000 and over 70 the number jumps to 12. When I mentioned to the couples that I was interested in finding out how they were coping with the costs of their prescriptions variations on "We're not" were echoed in almost every case. Who do they blame? Well....it isn't Hillary Clinton.

What many of the people said made them most angry was that the Republicans in Congress were more concerned with limiting the costs of malpractice insurance which has no connection in their opinion to the costs of drugs. They believe drug companies are protected by the Republicans to ensure that the stock market does well. Companies like Merck, Pfizer, and Eli Lilly have risen very nicely since the bottom of the market in 2002 while the costs for drugs have risen even faster.

So what is the consequence of this? Well, this would normally be a sure group of Republican voters. But they are not so sure this year. They believe the Democrats are more inclined to offer reforms which will mean they can make ends meet instead of borrowing from savings to pay to keep themselves alive. They think the President is focusing too much overseas while their quality of life is diminishing.

They might just vote Cash and Kerry...
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Madine
Join Date 04/2003
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Reply #1 June 25, 2004 9:19:46 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
Didn't we just pass a new prescription drug benefit that spends billions of dollars to reduce prescription drug prices?
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Reply #2 June 25, 2004 11:31:35 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
The new law protects families on very low income and in fact is no help at all to most. The maximum income for a couple to receive any benefits is $16,000 so if you are making more than $1250 per month, no benefits or $12,000 for an individual ($1000 per month). Once again, Congress passes a law that will benefit no one, then claims it is being benevolent in doing so.
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Madine
Join Date 04/2003
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Reply #3 June 25, 2004 12:12:53 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
The maximum income for a couple to receive any benefits is $16,000


Wrong. That is the maximum income for someone to get a $600 credit to assist them with drug costs. However, medicare beneficiaries above that income can still save money with a prescription drug card.
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MadPoet41
Join Date 03/2004
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Reply #4 June 25, 2004 1:20:43 PM
from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums

Crisp~well, I can only comment on the Medicaid situation. And since President Bush stepped into office~the health care crisis for disabled folks like me is very close to being a death sentence. I mean, in addition to chronic mental illness and such (clinical depression, major anxiety disorder, social phobia disorder, etc.) I have a  serious physical health problem : A very bad heart. (Actually, I'm supposed to already be dead. But I keep on beating the odds, and living twice as long as the doctors originally predicted I would.)


Anyway, I still am able to get my meds for my heart condition at a reduced price~I just pay a small $3 co-payment per month for that one. However, the situation with the meds and individual therapy I need for my quite serious mental health problems is a different one altogether. Not long after Bush officially stepped into the White House~I was informed that I would only be able to see my therapist every other week now. Medicaid would no longer pay for any more sessions than that. Then a few months later, all of a sudden I was informed (in writing) that I could only see my therapist once a month! Well, I knew what was coming by then, and told my therapist point blank that it was obvious that my individual therapy was soon going to be stopped entirely (unless I could somehow pay the $100 plus dollars myself. And my only income is $564 I receive each month in SSI Disability payments~the odd form of welfare Social Security). As I predicted, I was notified in writing within 3 months~individual therapy was no longer covered by Medicaid at all! In addition, all of the psychiatric meds (I take about six kinds) would require a co-payment of $3 per prescription. That means I had to pay a total of $18 per month for those now. That's not much money at all to most folks. But when you are as low income as I am ($564 per month) $18 is a lot of money.


So here's the situation now. I have not been able to afford to see my therapist in well over a year. I have to pay co-payments now on all my prescriptions, and since my condition is worsening big time due to the fact  I desperately need to see a therapist on a regular basis, but cannot afford to do so~I am being given more and more prescription drugs by the psychiatrist (which I have to pay additional co-payments on!) simply to cope with my worsening mental health. Actually, I think I am handling the health care crisis pretty well. I mean, I have known more than one disabled person that opted to jump off a balcony or overdose on meds to escape from their current misery. But I refuse to do that. I have decided that I must go on living and writing (I am a published poet) about the wretched conditions most disabled folks are being forced to endure. Affordable housing (someone should write about that one!) and quality health care are being taken away from some of society's most vulnerable citizens. So when I am telling my story in a poem~it becomes the story of so many others like me~only many of them are too overwhelmed (or ill) to somehow voice their thoughts and opinions. This is an excellent article. Keep on blogging big time!


~MadPoet


 

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Reply #5 June 25, 2004 1:36:55 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
Madine:
But, as you can see from the analysis that I have for the one couple: $600 would not be much by comparison to their total bill and since the benefits drop off fairly significantly on the amount over $16,000 the benefit (small to begin with) is essentially not a talking point for seniors. If President Bush tries to sell the prescription drug benefit as something he's "proud" of, I think voters will be moved to vote for Kerry.
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Reply #6 June 25, 2004 1:40:08 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums
MadPoet41:
Thanks for the input. My daughter is an OT at a public school in the midwest and some of the horror stories she has told me about costs for helping disabled children and the care they get, especially for the very ill like yourself would make Charles Dickens cringe. Thanks for the encouragement on blogging!
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Reply #7 July 19, 2004 3:00:58 PM
from JoeUser ForumsJoeUser Forums
Good thoughts. Many of us 55 or so who are paying several hundred dollars a month for drug co-pays and $750 plus a month for insurance are looking at the long run and saying, "Why bother?" We certainly can't afford the actual cost of these drugs at 65, so why pay all this money now only to die at 65? Stop taking the drugs now and let the first thing that gets you take you. They are putting people in jail for assisted suicide, but drug companies and healthcare providers continue to get bolder and bolder and nothing happens to them. It's like watching the Nazis take over and saying nothing. These Republicans want to ban abortion and stem cell research and write constitutional amendments about gay people, of all things, but they are allowing thousands of their constituants to die daily at at the hands of the drug and healthcare companies. What is happening out there for people who have serious health issues is at best wrongful death and quite probably murder. Got any attorneys who want to take that one on? It will be a new frontier for lawyers to mine. They pretty much got all the goody out of tobacco companies. I say we sick them on the drug and healthcare companies. Oh but I forgot, the Supreme Court won't let you sue your healthcare company, will they? We've opened Pandora's box and unless some politician gets some guts and really decides to make the truth an issue, we are doomed. One way to insure some zero population growth though without all that guilt around forcing the old to concentration camps to kill them. Let the drug companies and healthcare people do it at no risk whatsoever to their agenda.
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