Dont destroy the safety net, it could happen to you (long letter)

[NightWatcher]

The following is for my repuke friends who are in favor of destroying Medicare/Medicaid but havent thought about it honestly or how many millions of people that would put in harm's way.

........................................

Before you vote for a candidate who’s ticket has propsed ending Medicare and Medicaid as we know it by replacing it with a voucher system that you would take to a health insurance company and apply it to your total bill, think for a moment about the people that depend on Medicare and Medicaid for ALL of their healthcare. Without these two social safety nets, millions of Americans would not be able to seek treatment or afford prescriptions necessary to sustain their lives on a daily basis. How many people over age 65 are dependent on Medicare for the majority of their healthcare insurance? How many people under 65 are dependent on Medicaid or Medicare to cover the costs of their medical needs?

If tomorrow you should suffer the unimaginable and become strickened with and diagnosed with a disabling disease and become unable to work, unable to provide for your family, what would you do? How would you cover your healthcare costs? How would you provide for your family? Where would grocery money come from after you had not been able to work for six months? Under current conditions, there’s a social safety net that the government created to care for the people who have fallen on hard times. Thanks to this last line of government assistance many people are able to afford medical care to keep themselves alive and healthy as they battle their conditions and are able to put food on the table and provide for their families physical needs.

In January 2012 I was working full time, in good health, and providing income for my wife and child. Februrary 2012 I began losing weight and strength in my legs. By mid March 2012 I had lost 50 pounds of muscle from my legs and arms, I could not stand from a chair, drive, or get to work much less complete a shift. I could not raise my arms above my head, nor could I bath myself or walk more than ten feet without collapsing. After the ambulance ride to the hospital and more than a week of invasive tests, biopsies, and blood work, the doctors told me that I had two auto immune diseases where my body was literaly attacking me from the inside out. One of the diseases strikes the internal organs (kidneys and liver in my case so far) and the other is a neuro muscular disease that weakens the muscles closest to your core affecting your ability to stand, lift your arms, swallow effectively, and in fatal cases, your heart’s ability to function properly. Oh, and I was told that I’d never be able to work again. So there I was with no job and no way to ever bring income home to provide for my wife and child. Also, without a job how was I going to cover the costs of treating my diseases and the prescription drugs that were going to prolong my life and curb my symptoms. Overnight I became dependent on help. Help in the form of Medicaid to cover the costs of more than a week in the hospital full of expensive tests, ongoing visits to numerous doctors all managing a different aspect of my new conditions, and prescriptions that would treat my symptoms and hopefully force my diseases into remission or at least under control. I would also need to help to provide food, shelter, and clothing for my wife and child. This help came from Social Security who has programs in place to provide minimum assistance for the basic needs of a family. I’m now dependent on the government for my medical care, prescriptions, and groceries and shelter for my family.

What would you do if the unthinkable were to happen to you tomorrow? No one wants to go onto public assistance, but when you’ve lost everything its very good to know that there is a safety net in place to help you stay alive and provide for your family. It’s not a huge amount by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s enough to keep you alive. So when you hear about “welfare queens” living the good life free and easy on your hard earned tax dollars, think of me with my handfull of pills, nerve pain in both legs, kidney and liver damage, and shortened life expectancy holding my one year old daughter. Yes, I do live the good life but not because I’m carefree on easy street, but because the net caught me and I am alive to enjoy my wife and daughter’s smiles and love.

[PDJane]

1. Exactly.

I am sorry, NightWatcher, that this has happened to you, and grateful that there is at least a little assistance there for you.


The safety net has been so degraded that it barely provides enough to keep body and soul together. However, it seems to me that without things like medicare and social security, without medicaid and disability and welfare, the death rate would be much higher.

Part of that comes, of course, from the diseases that come with a degraded environment, and we're going to see more of that, not less.

And yes, I feel helpless and frustrated.