9.17.2010

Frustrations of a widow and Obama's health care plan

I have been sitting at my desk all day. I should have been doing homework but instead I am pulling papers together to put my children on state run healthcare. Thank God it is available and they will have healthcare coverage. My last paycheck comes at the end of this month and I will then be responsible for the $500 COBRA payment my insurance company wants to shuck me down the ladder to the cheapest insurance they offer. Gah.
So I have everything together for the kids and can go in one day next week and supplicate myself in front of the ladies at the Department for Community Based Services. It is humiliating and I can handle that to keep my boys insured and healthy. My problem is that there is nothing available to keep me healthy. I have just been diagnosed with a heart problem, my husband is dead, my work has decided to discipline me the day I go to the Emergency Room. Where is the heart? I can't go back to that job. I need the medication that keeps these attacks at bay. On the other hand, if I stop taking the medicine, go back to work, face the disciplinary action they decide to take against me so I can go back to work to keep my insurance then I face the possibility of another attack, which the doctor told me could damage my heart or kill me.
No brainer, I can't leave my boys motherless, their step-dad is already gone. The only real father they have ever known. Their real father is God knows where, we haven't heard from him in over a year and that is the good news. What would happen to my boys if I went off these meds and something should happen to me? I can't do it.
So where do I go for my medications, and the doctors visits I have to endure to get the prescriptions? There is no where for me to turn in this world of health crisis. I am waiting for the healthcare plan to help me. Will I have to wait until 2018? Will I live that long? Should I move to Canada where I can get the care I need and the medicine to sustain me?
I don't know the answers but I do know it is a frustration I don't need. Death, death, funeral, death, loneliness, heartache, death and more heartache. Surrounded by a system that doesn't care and would rather see me give up.
I don't plan on doing that. I will continue with school although the workload is incredible with all of the other tasks I have pulling at my apron strings. I will get these boys on Passport so they can be covered and cared for. If I can manage to go back to work without the meds I will. I just don't have much hope of that, so in that case I need to come up with an extra $500 a month to cover that COBRA payment when we have just lost the main source of our income and now we have lost mine as well. I don't know how it will work out but I do know that God works in amazing and marvelous ways. Trusting Him has gotten me through some rough times and I know this will be no different.
Aiming to have the studio done this fall so I can start offering pottery classes on Saturdays. That should generate some income and some fun as well. Just not enough to cover this COBRA payment and even if I could cover it, I would be on the lowest scale of insurance available. I would literally need to spend my whole deductible before any benefits kicked in at all. So that means paying for all doctors visits, prescriptions, everything before I got any benefits from the program at all. I just don't have that. It's a good thing I've stopped eating and all I have to do is feed the boys. A widow has a hard way in this world and I don't know how some without children get by. I got a post from a widow on the board I post to who was 60 years old and has cataracts. She doesn't qualify for medicaid until she is 65 and her doctor told her she would be blind by then. Something is wrong people. This is a huge problem. Our society has changed and we need to change with it. Some of our government programs are old and outdated and need to be gone, some new ones need to replace them to help people like this poor woman who is going blind because there is nothing she can do to get help with her health. It's just wrong and very frustrating for this widow chick today. Breathing now.

4 comments:

  1. It is sad that this happens to anyone on our country. Why did it only cost me $165 today for my CAT to have a teeth cleaning and 3 teeth pulled (this included the charge for 14 days of amoxycillin)?

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  2. Anonymous4:03 PM

    I for one support the Obama health care reform.. I am a true Christian who cares about my fellow man.

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  3. Vicki- try PPA.org they may be able to help with meds...that is what they are supposed to do. I am proud of all you do to see the boys are taken care of. I imagine it is darned frustrating to try and figure out your insurance. IF I think of anything I will post further.

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  4. Sorry to hear what you're going through. I almost had that kind of dilemma with individual health insurance over a high thyroid number -- but prayed my brains out, and the TSH tested normal again, so I could get my old cheaper plan. If it hadn't, I considered working part-time at Starbucks -- I've heard they have excellent health benefits, even for part-time workers. Also, someone told me that the Chamber of Commerce offers some kind of affordable coverage for self-employed folks. And I see ads for affordable meds through something called Astra Zeneca. (I've also heard that if you contact pharmaceutical companies whose meds you can't afford, sometimes they will work out a deal for cheap or free.) Hope any of that helps. Will be praying for God's peace, provision and comfort in this tough time...

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