Grumpa Joe's Place

     Thank you, Dan Rather. You gave me this inspirational idea. Do you ever really know what you are getting when you purchase a watermelon?  It has a very thick skin that is very solid and green. It can look very tasty from the outside, but are you ever sure of how ripe it is on the inside? The watermelon is a perfect example to explain the current healthcare plan that Congress is pouring down our throats for our own good. Who knows what evil lurks inside the two thousand plus pages of the gobble-de-gook language of a Harvard lawyer. It may be the best thing ever presented to the American people, or it can be the worst. How do we know? How will we know? When will we know?  I guess we will have to believe just like the followers of one Jim Jones, and swallow the cool-aid to find out.

     This morning, I got a rude awakening from a health care provider. It is no secret that I have Medicare as my primary insurance. Ii carry a secondary private policy to cover what the wonderful Medicare does not. I would prefer to buy my own healthcare insurance, but when a person turns sixty-five in the USA, it is his obligation to swallow Medicare. That is wrong, I am not obligated to take Medicare, but since I pay for it with my taxes, I feel that I am entitled to get it. I am not rich enough to buy it on my own.

     I called the healthcare provider to order diabetic testing supplies.  I have some experience with diabetes, having raised a child from the age of five who had type-one diabetes. I know the value of testing blood to determine where the sugar level is. Also for years, I preached to my son on the value of knowing his blood sugar so he could adjust his insulin level appropriately. When I became diabetic, I decided I had better walk the talk. For the past five years, I have tested myself three to four times a day. I use my sugar level to decide when to eat, how much to eat, and what to eat. I have maintained a normal A1C level (long-term blood sugar level) for five years.

     Why do I do this? I do it because diabetes is the scourge of the human body. It is the number one reason for new blindness in the United States. It is the number one reason for the amputation of a person’s foot. It is a cause for kidney failure. Diabetics are almost guaranteed to suffer a stroke or heart attack. The list of body damage and collateral diseases is long. I figure that it is much healthier to live with testing and adjusting my diet than it is to let the disease go rampant. My quality of life is much better also.

     So, this morning when my provider told me that Medicare only pays for a single blood test every day, I became incensed. What will happen when Obama care cuts another five hundred billion dollars out of the Medicare budget?  I shudder to think of what will happen if you are a type-one diabetic and Obama care dictates to you how often you can test.  It is my prediction, that with universal health care and the shortage of doctors it will create, and treatments it will dictate we get, that diabetes will be a death sentence like it was before the invention of insulin.

     There is nothing like moving backward a hundred years in the name of CHANGE and improvement.

Wanna buy a rotten watermelon for a hundred bucks?

Filed under: Biography, Cartoons, Conservative, economy, Election, family, Government, health care, liberals, politics | Tagged: A1C, American Diabetes Association, blindness, Blood Test, Cool-Aid, Dan Rather, Death Sentence, diabetes, Entitlement, Foot Amputation, Heart Attack, Insulin, Jim Jones, Kidney Failure, Medicare, Obama, Obama Care, Stroke, Type One Diabetes, Type Two Diabetes, Watermelon |