The Eldery

[Gabriella7]

Insurance

Ann, I don't have a golden combo as you assume. I pay over $300 a month combined for Medicare as primary and GEHA as secondary. I kept my insurance coverage when I had to retire on a disability income which is not enough to even keep a roof over my head. If I was not married or if I become widowed I might not even be able to cover the cost of living. You might consider that you don't know anything about me either. You must be under 65 if your BCBS is primary and Medicare is secondary. You have the better combo of coverage. It doesn't work out the same either as you will discover when you turn 65.

Ann, You mentioned "Its good to keep in mind who you are talking to". There is no way for me to know who I am talking to as most people here have not filled in any personal information. I think it would be a good idea if everyone would fill in some information under the signature line such as medical, treatments, interests, hobbies, retired, working, etc. Just a thought........as it would give us a better idea who we are talking to.

For those who have Medicare as primary you know that they are the insurance that controls what is paid to the doctors and it doesn't matter who your secondary coverage is with.....Medicare is in control and you have to have Medicare as primary when you turn 65. It doesn't matter that you have paid for your other insurance for 45 years. Some doctors are dropping Medicare patients. I know what patients who only have Medicaid go thru as my Mother and Father through no fault of theirs (He became legally blind at age 40) only had Medicaid and lived totally on a SSDI in government housing after losing their house and everything he worked for over the years.

I got a good education in what happens to people who thru no fault of their own have to depend on public assistance. That is the reason I admire FDR and what he stood for even though he was a very wealthy man, he had sympathy for those less fortunate. I don't know what would have happened to my parents if it were not for the programs that were put in place so many years ago by him and the democratic congress. Our social security system was put in place during his time. He was responsible for bringing our country out of a deep depression by putting people back to work on government projects.

I have 3 sons, only 1 who still has insurance coverage with a $1,000 deductible. One son who moved to another state was dropped from Kaiser Permamente after 20 years of coverage because there are no Kaiser doctors in Tennessee. He couldn't get coverage with any other insurance because of a pre-existing condition and my other son lost his business and his insurance due to the economic downturn and 3 months later had a major heart attack. His house is in forclosure. I know how bad it can get.

What I was suggesting to Abby was to do some homework and find another doctor who will take her with whatever insurance she has if she is not satisfied with her current doctor. I changed doctors within the same practice after 10 years and the new doctor found the MG which is why I am getting monthly infusions which is being paid for by Medicare. I like my new doctor much better than the old one who wasn't doing anything for me. As long as he will accept my Medicare insurance I will stay with him.

Regardless of what you think, I am not a golden child from a priviledged background, I went to work when I was 16 and I worked until I no longer could work outside the home and since 1994 I've worked from home to provide an income for 2 others..... so I am still working, just not drawing a salary for myself.

Blessings,
Gabriella:angel:

[Gabriella7]

Abby

It might have started as a thread about "The Elderly" but you changed the tone when you posted about the "death panels" and Obamacare. Do you know how much stress reading these articles about "death panels" causes others? This is a false idea that Sarah Palin promoted during her campaign. On a different note........

Sorry to hear that you only have Medicare Part B. I don't know how the insurance works if you don't have Part A as well. Could you qualify for Medicaid? My middle son is trying to get Medicaid as he has no insurance at the moment and has lost his income and his home. He recently had a major heart attack in his 40's. Medicaid is run by the state and it is very hard to get approval. He tells me he has to be at the Medicaid office at 8am and they will only take 8 clients in for the whole day. He has been given the run-a-round for 3 months and still is not approved.

We are helping him out financially until his patent illustration business picks back up and who knows how long that will be. He has to be out of his house this weekend and will be living in a camper for a while. He is having to struggle to pay for the medicines that he needs and it is so expensive without insurance. We are just thankful we have the means to help both him and his son who is in college. We didn't get any inheritance money from either parents so we managed to save enough with both of us working and living within our means.....still in the house we bought in 1970.

A lot of people are dealing with more stress in our lives and don't need to add to it. I've stopped watching the news or reading much of the papers as our personal lives has enough stress to handle without all the additional "drama".

Gabriella:angel:

[Mike Weins]

Let's keep the topic on track and not mention 'obamacare' out of these forums. I have done some editing to try to keep the thread alive, but further posts with political undertones will either be removed completely, or cause the locking of this thread.

[Mariel]

Gabriella, I see you have struggled heroically to get medical care for yourself, and two of your sons are now struggling. I am blessed with my coverage, and the blessing came primarily because I was married to Irv. His coverage from Boeing continues for me after his death. My own teacher's pension is a help, but small, because I had to retire early. I have a tiny pension which helps from my disability insurance which I took out while I was still teaching; it was easy to get because it covered the whole group of teachers in Washington State. What you say about a spouse's help with expenses is so true. I am SO blessed to have had Irv.
He was the biggest blessing of my entire life.

The struggle I have had has not been so much with coverage as with how to find doctors who can even start to treat a person with my combo of illnesses. I, like you. have a whole plateful. In spite of having basically good constitution, I have all these diseases, mostly hematological (and Dr. Swank would have classified MS as partly hematological, I'm guessing). It is a struggle to find a doctor who will have patience with my refusal to take certain drugs and my insistence that I need others (mostly when I am in hospital, where they tend to take your daily drugs away for a day , which for me results is neurological jerking and spasming and atrial fibrillation--it's very predictable and they simply won't listen, so the hospital is a scary place for me.

I too still pay for my Medicare and Aetna--it's not free!

I believe Steve Jobs tried alternative treatments for the first nine months of his dx, and thus put off surgery, which may have been a bad choice. After that he had some regular allopathic care. that is what I read, anyhow. I too have used alternate health means primarily, as did my husband. He chose not to have his heart valve replaced, and thus died probably much sooner than if he had had
surgery, but he reduced the chance of stroke by living out his natural life this way. When he died they said he looked twenty years
younger than he was; but he still got this disease of the heart valve, which they said came from the same source as the arthritis
which put him in a wheelchair. Some things cannot be fixed by either allopathic or naturopathic medicine at their present state of knowledge.

I will write another thread about my upcoming scary trip to Mayo Clinic Scottsdale, where I will have the most allopathic of all treatments, radiation. Nine months of thinking about it finally convinced me that I can't possibly metabolize the chemo therapies given to reduce platelets and red cells, which proliferate in my two MPN diseases, and that radiation is the only choice. I hear good reports about results.

Mariel

[Gabriella7]

Hope for You

Mariel, I am hoping that your treatments will bring you a miracle. I have heard great reports about all the Mayo Clinic doctors. As you know I have a full plate also and my Primary Care doctor just tells me I am too complicated for him and refers me out to the specialist. He does all my lab work which has to be done fasting as his office is only 10 minutes away.

Because I use all the physicians affiliated with the same hospital they all have access thru the computer to my records. I know this is more than most people have who live in rural areas. I just happen to live close to a large metropolitan area which is Atlanta, Georgia with an abundance of medical facilities. I have a new problem which showed up on the c-scan done to look for a tumor in my chest. It showed a problem with a aortic valve and calcification in the artery.

I have to go for an echocardigram and a stress test in a week or two. I'm not looking forward to it as they will have to give me stimulation to increase my heart rate as I cannot walk fast enough nor far enough to increase the rate. I will make another post about this test after I get the results. I am blessed to have my husband who has been my caregiver for the past 10 years but he has some serious health problems which are causing some difficulties and it looks like our roles are going to be reversed soon.

Hope you safe traveling to Mayo and a good outcome.

Blessings,
Gabriella:angel:

[Abby2006]

Hi Mike!

Gabrella you said"

. Do you know how much stress reading these articles about "death panels" causes others?

Gabrella no one has ever said the subject of death 'stressed' them, they only thing they have been stressed avout is me pointing out what they have planned for us and death is not our friend and not a place we want to go to (

Abby

Be afraid be very afraid

[renee]

Bed bugs and bad landlords scare me at least as much.

[agate]

Bed bugs and bad landlords scare me at least as much.

I wish I'd said that.

[SalpalSally]

Abby, please dear, quit printing those phrases that are, most likely, not true and only said to scare/seek our vote.

I get enough of that carp in E-mails.

Thank you..






.

[Mike Weins]

Ok let's stop using "death panels" and "obamacare" before I have to add them to the word censor.

[SalpalSally]

Thanks Mike..:o

[Abby2006]

To everyone, my intent was nor to scare you to cause you stress but rather to motivate you into maybe speaking up for your selves and not take this, write a congressman or something.

[Abby

[Gabriella7]

Thanks Sally,

The bill for "Affordable Health Care for America Act" H.R. 3962 was signed into law in June 2010. You can read all 1990 pages if you would like and find no reference to the subject matter that has been discussed here. That was a Sarah Palin quote from 4 years ago and is a total lie that she fabricated in an attempt to win the election so there is absolutely no reason to write your representative.

The truth is when you go into a hospital "they" will ask you if you have a directive or legal document stating what your wishes are concerning keeping you going with artificial means or not if you cannot speak for yourself or a "power of attorney"? It's as simple as that and it has been around since the Bush era as it was passed in a bill that went through during his reign. It was inacted because it was needed. Terry's case brought up the need to have this document after it went all the way to the Supreme Court and the costs were astronomical.

So, Abby, all of us "elderly" folks would appreciate it if you would stop bringing IT back up! You don't scare anybody....you just need to get the facts straight and stop repeating lies dreamed up by the politicians.

BTW, Not to scare you but.... life is terminal......

Blessings,
Gabriella:angel:

[Mariel]

Thanks, Mike, from me too.

[Gabriella7]

Moderation

Thanks Mike for all your work.....to keep us moderated!

Blessings,
Gabriella:angel: