Living the American healthcare dream

Alright guys and gals, I am not kidding when I say I need any small donations you can swing this month. If just a few dozen people where to pitch in 10 or 20 bucks that would do it. My lifestyle is frugal. This is potentially dire, possibly even life and death. Here’s where things stand: I had a comprehensive review of all tests performed to date over the last several months, there are still more to be done, but for now the verdict is not terrible: my condition continues to improve. I’m feeling a lot better. But it a was a close call, I could have easily died or ended up a vegetable, and I’m not out of the woods completely both medically and financially. Sad to say, there is a political party that is literally trying to kill me and millions like me. [Read more…]

Early indications on Healthcare-dot-gov are promising

Click image for holiday bleg snail-mail details
Again I apologize for bombarding readers with a plea for holiday generosity, but without it this blog and my health would be much worse off. I used to only ask once a year, but beginning earlier this spring a freak heart attack and subsequent complications, combined with disability pay that clocked in below minimum wage, forced me to virtually panhandle like my life depended on it. The response was heartening. Without the help of a few dozen regulars, I would have been juggling couch surfing with friends or outright homelessness, while trying to recover from an ongoing, life threatening condition. The end may finally be near, if I get through this month, there’s good reason to hope things will begin to improve in every way.

Going through that nerve-wracking, humiliating ordeal while the national discourse was tainted with delusions and wanton cruelty emanating from (usually) ultra-conservative critics, many of whom proudly profess a belief in the principles of mercy and charity as conveyed by their savoir Jesus Christ, ranks among the most surreal, gritty , at times truly Orwellian experiences in my life. That rare kind of personal intrusion, where news ceases to be a TV show and suddenly leaps out from my screen, with intent to harm on par with an armed thug suddenly crashing through the front-door. After a glitchy roll out, and no end of Teaparty whining about people like me having an affordable option to preserve our health, the news this week has markedly improved for Healthcare.gov: [Read more…]

Grad student & fellow Texan signs up using Healthcare-dot-gov for pennies

plan

Click the image fore details on the total cost on a Silver Plan when s/he was done …. three cents a month! S/he’s also in the same boat I am: if the diarist makes just a tiny bit less than what s/he estimated for 2014, they will not qualify for a private policy and there is no Medicaid expansion option.

With my eligibility confirmed, I was ready to select an actual plan. I already knew basically what was available and basically what plan I was going to pick, because I had done a bit of research over the past month or two. Two really useful websites I found are Value Penguin and The Health Sherpa, which both have good estimators of the costs of Obamacare plans.

Sen Ted Cruz (R-sociopath) is afraid we commoners might get “addicted to the sugar,” like some poor child eating their way to ADHD down at the local candy store. Except the “sugar” is, you know, having a shot at beating cancer or other inopportune diseases and injuries …

 

Judgement Day for Healthcare dot gov

HealthSherpa

Health Sherpa

The Affordable Care Act will have its usual detractors and promoters this week, but today is a deadline, the first of December. Sure, make merry, as the second leg of the glorious Winter holiday season looms. But for the usual suspects, today will also be a special day to better lie, cheat, insult, obfuscate and otherwise misinform the American public, the land of the free and the home of the uninsured; almost 50 million citizens lack healthcare coverage of any sort and millions more are under insured on junky policies. A huge number of the uncovered are also mired in poverty, exacerbating that dismal metric. Obamacare can address a lot of it, although millions will be left naked again, at least this year and most often next too, at least until saner heads prevail, in those red states where ledges or governors have chosen to withhold free healthcare from the least fortunate. That’s a sad commentary on the wealthy-political axis; forever in pursuit of any thing smacking of indecency or inhumanity, provided there’s so much as a tiny chance it may sway the news cycle against Barack Obama for a single morning. [Read more…]

WSJ publishes woo-sayer nonsense

Suzanne Somers once played a part on a less-than-exciting, thank-god-it-ended 1970s TV show that exploited the twin stereotypes of flaming gay men and brainless blond bimbos. She tried to jack her costars for an extra cut of the loot when the series became briefly popular, they told her to get lost, and her career promptly took giant shit. Somers mercifully almost disappeared from the public eye, only surfacing more recently after medical technology saved her life, a favor she returned by putting out books hawking quackery and quack cures. So clearly when the Wall Street Journal needed an expert on healthcare, she told them to come and knock on her door. The link below goes to LGF so don’t feel like you’re rewarding the Journal for the bait. Let’s do a quickie fisk: [Read more…]

How to shut down a teatard

Nicely done and obviously not the answer Rep Camp (R-grifter) was angling for. Shorter version: “The insurance company was jacking your constituent for premiums on a junk policy they planned on cancelling the minute he got sick or injured, and the ACA has put that particular scam out of business. … and you’re welcome.”

The horror of comprehensive health insurance

It wasn’t my choice to become a walking, talking healthcare reform example. But lately that is my fate. Friday night I got a sore throat — these things seem to always happen on the weekend of course. By Sunday it was incredibly painful and so swollen my face was beginning to be deformed. Fortunately, Monday my PCP was in, a quick visit, a $20 copay and $10 more for prescribed antibiotics and now, less than 24 hours later, it’s already noticeably better.

It was bad enough that I was completely out of the game all day yesterday and I’m still running a pretty good fever. It’s scary to think what might have happened without health insurance, because this was the most painful sore throat I have ever experienced and it was spreading rapidly — a side effect of being on auto-immune drugs and cortisone no doubt.

First thing I see now that I’m up and running is this lovely article making the rounds with the usual suspects: [Read more…]