Thursday, August 6, 2009

I try to avoid a lot of political stuff on my blog

But every once in a while, I feel the need to share something.  A lot of people are talking about the health care reform and a single payer system or some other pretty way of wanting (or not wanting) government run, government controlled health care.

Let's take a look at some of the successes of government run anything.

Social Security.  It is broke.  It has been for a long time.  COLA comes around once a year.  (Cost of living adjustment.)  COLA does not keep up with actual COLA for the rest of society.  The latest COLA was 5.8%.  It was the biggest adjustment since 1982.  The actual COLA for the rest of society was over 11%.  People pay into this system their whole working lives and when they retire (this is in fact supposed to be a retirement account that people are forced to pay into against their will when they have a paying job) and it does not allow them a livable income.  They are forced to choose.  "Do I pay to keep my water and lights on or do I buy food?"  Yeah, this works.  FAIL!

Social Security Disability.  Available to anyone with a disability.  There are certain disabilities that are supposed to be automatic acceptance.  Cancer is one.  My BIL died a few years ago.  He applied for SSDI and was denied.  And he appealed.  And he was denied.  And he appealed.  His acceptance came through after he had been dead for a year and a half.
I used to know a young lady when we lived in Kentucky briefly.  She was an amputee.  She filed for disability.  Even after going in front of the judge and waving her limb, she was still denied.  I don't know if she was ever finally accepted, but the last time I talked to her, she was working on her fifth appeal.  This program is obviously working perfectly.  FAIL!

Public Housing.  This is something that was supposed to be this wonderful program to allow families to have beautiful homes at affordable rates and live in nice neighborhoods.  How many people are running towards government housing?  What has become of that?  What did it bring out?  Cockroaches.  Both human and bug.  Yeah.  That's where I want to raise my family!  FAIL!

VAMC.  April 8, 2004, Diane Sawyer did a report which was actually a follow up from a similar report ten years previously about the conditions found at various VAMC throughout the country.  Sadly, the conditions have not improved much.  We taped this episode and still have the tape.  (Although we no longer have  VCR.)  The conditions are appalling and no human should be forced to receive their medical care at such places.  Unfortunately, many people do not have a choice.  May I please have Hep C with that colonoscopy?

Medicare.  This is another failing government run entity.  We actually tried to get my husband out of VA care and into civilian care, but that left us thousands of dollars in debt within just a couple of months.  He had medicare at the time.  He even had money removed from his disability each month automatically to pay for his medicare.  What is did instead is put us in debt.  So, we were forced to have him back in the VAMC and did what we should have done all along.  Take responsibility for our own health.

2 comments:

Wendi said...

AMEN!!!!I 100% agree...:):)

Anonymous said...

You are so correct.