May 13, 2013 on the AP wire…
"WASHINGTON (AP) — Cancer patients could face high
costs for medications under President Barack Obama's health care law, industry
analysts and advocates warn.
Where you live could make a huge difference in what you'll
pay.
To try to keep premiums low, some states are allowing
insurers to charge patients a hefty share of the cost for expensive medications
used to treat cancer, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and other
life-altering chronic diseases."
Thank you so much Mr. F-ing Obama... I am already facing a HUGE
co-pay for my med EVERY MONTH for my rheumatoid arthritis... and now with your
dumb-ass healthcare "reform" you might be ending my working
career... I cannot work my ass off just
to pay for a medication...and that is exactly what you are doing to people like
me. If this comes to pass I too will be "on the dole" and I will
become one of the statistics I so loathe...a net taker. I will not be able to
afford the "reform". You Barak will have forced me and people like me
to become dependants when we have worked all our lives to be INDEPENDENT. I am
ALREADY giving the government 40% of my paycheck. I am now giving a drug
company 25% of my take home pay for ONE medication and that is likely to go up
now? That is insanity.
So who did Obamacare actually help? NO ONE.
We already had Medicare and Medicaid for the uninsured and the uninsurable. For those who choose not to work -- you are
on your own. There IS work out there --
make no mistake. It just is harder than
many people want to work…or it pays less than they think they are worth or it
is "beneath them". Nothing is
beneath any of us for honest work.
Finding a job is hard work -- but it isn't impossible. As an insurable person (meaning I can't just
buy it from anyone) I was faced with three choices. (Also note that my chronic
disease is through no fault of my own -- I did not choose my parents or their
genes). My three choices are:
1) Go on government assistance and not work so I would
"qualify" for aid. That was a
no.
2) The second choice was to pay for my own through the Cover
Colorado -- not great coverage but sure was better than none.
3) Or I could pursue a job and fight for a job that provided
coverage.
I was on Cover Colorado for a while and kept healthy enough
to work as a contractor -- it was work I could find so I did it. I still had to pay for my own healthcare premiums -- it is NOT free. I was not feeling
great but I was healthy enough to work and that is what I did. My "window
of wellness" was just enough to get through a work week with maybe a
little left over for a horseback ride -- often not anything left over. Running
and riding my bike was OUT! Then I
looked for jobs that would provide me coverage and I took a job that was far
less pay than I wanted and not at all the "dream job" I wanted and
still I made it work. In fact at times it was a
miserable place to work -- but it was my job and it provided me with things that I could not
provide for myself. It is called a
COMPROMISE. I don't have the RIGHT to
have a great job -- I have the RIGHT TO THE FREEDOM to pursue it.
I am not a silver spoon kid.
I don't want to hear any "Yeah but you had this advantage or that
advantage". I was a WAITRESS for much of my 20s. I didn't go to college until my late 20s and
that was because I wanted to BE more and EARN more than a waitress did. I paid for EVERY DIME of my own education and
at the beginning cobbled together classes in between part time work at a
construction company, waitressing, teaching preschool and cleaning houses. I left the house at 6AM and didn't get home
until 10-10:30PM almost every night. It was quite a juggling act but we were in
a recession at the time and it was all I could do to make ends meet.
I face not one but two chronic diseases and I still took
care of what was in front of me. If I
told you my life story you would nominate me for an Oprah award - and yet I
don't want your pity and I don't want the government's handouts. I want the freedom to pursue a career and be
a useful part of society. It was not all
f-ing joy and roses. But I knew it was
up to me to get anywhere if I didn't want to stay where I was. I have been through the wringer more than
once. The best thing one can do is stand
up, dust yourself off and put one foot in front of the other and keep moving.
The young and healthy -- those who don't want to buy healthcare
insurance have the RIGHT to not buy it -- now all of you with kids who thought
this was a good idea…your kids are going to be paying MUCH higher rates for
their health insurance to offset all of those who are costly to insure. You
don't think your rates are going to go up if you keep your kid on your plan
until he or she is 26? Think again. Your kids and their kids will be soaked to
pay off the national debt and your kids will be soaked to pay for people who
don't want to pay for themselves. The well-off and wealthy who choose to
self-insure and can afford it, have the right to self insure.
The sick and hilarious irony in all this "healthcare
reform" is that nothing is working the way we were told it would
work. Face it -- all he wanted to do is
1) have his name on something big and 2) win an election. He told us this would
be a saving grace for people like me -- people who were faced with pre-existing
conditions. We would now be insured like
everyone else. That no one could turn us
away. Well that is all hunky-dory Barak
-- but SOMEONE has got to pay for it!
For someone who is willing to work and can be kept healthy enough to
work -- some support is a good investment.
Allow someone like me to produce more than I consume. That is the whole idea of an HMO -- spread
out the risk. They actually work. But the federal government is so busy trying
to win the hearts and minds of a class of people who will continue to vote for
them as long as the support doesn't run out.
Give them a freebie and you have got their vote. It is sickening.
Do you realize that only 44% of the US population over the
age of 18 is actually IN THE WORKFORCE?
That means that over HALF the US population of people over the age of 18
are NOT WORKING!! This includes those who are retired. A record 5.4 million
workers and their dependents have signed up to collect federal disability
checks since President Obama took office. These people are no longer counted as
"unemployed" so they make the unemployment rate look good. Why are they now suddenly
"disabled" when they were not before Obama took office?
"We see a lot of people applying for disability once
their unemployment insurance expires," said Matthew Rutledge, a research
economist at Boston College's Center for Retirement Research.
The number of applications last year was up 24% compared
with 2008, Social Security Administration data show.
As the Congressional Budget Office explained : "When
opportunities for employment are plentiful, some people who could quality for
(disability insurance) benefits find working more attractive ... when
employment opportunities are scarce, some of these people participate in the DI
program instead." That means folks
that they ARE healthy enough to WORK! I am
all for support for those who are truly disabled but for those who "find
it more attractive" -- please, that means you CAN WORK and you should
work. And again there is work out there
if you are willing.
The explosive growth in disability enrollment also
"helps explain some of the drop in the labor force participation
rate," noted economist Ed Yardeni on his blog.
In fact, the participation rate — the share of working-age
people who have or are looking for a job — has fallen to 63.8% compared with
65.7% at the start of Obama's term.
Ironically, this drives down the unemployment rate, which
simply measures how many people are looking for work but haven't been able to
find it. When people quit looking or sign up for disability benefits, they no
longer count as unemployed.
The problem is that few people who get on disability will
ever participate in the labor force again. Think about that for a moment they will NEVER WORK AGAIN and they have no incentive to ever work again --
every one of us needs the next generation to pay into social security for our own
benefits. Sadly, that is the way the
program was set up. In fact, the vast bulk of those who exit Social Security
Disability Insurance do so either because they hit retirement age or died --
not because they have now decided to work again.
So in closing this sucks! I will be penalized if I want to
work and produce and I will be rewarded if I become a dependant. Isn't that just a little screwed up? I ask everyone out there -- is this right? Is
this good? Can you really, really still support this?
I could go on and on -- but I have to get in the shower and
get myself ready for WORK!
