Here We Go Again

Posted on 22/09/2017 by Grumpa Joe

 

pre_existing-1-2.gif

The debate about repealing the UN-affordable Care Act has rekindled once again. Democrats are determined to keep the crap they invented going for as long as they can. Their hope is to stall the ACA act into bankruptcy, and to then foster a bill to push money into its entrails to keep it alive. In the meantime, the millions of people who have not been able to afford it go without any health care at all. Those who can buy it will have crappy care, and go bankrupt because they won’t be able to afford it either.

Years ago while traveling in Canada I learned that the Canadian government has universal health care for all the provinces. In their wisdom they invented a scheme which paid each province the same amount of money. It was up to the province to spend it however they wished on meeting the needs of their constituents health needs. Canadians were happy. I don’t know if that is still the case, but that is what it was back in the eighties or nineties when I traveled there.

The company I worked for decided how much they could afford to spend on health care without going broke and subsidized our company policy to that tune. If we demanded a stronger policy, the dollar difference came out of our paychecks. We grumbled a bit about having to pay more, but overall we were happy with the situation. I was lucky, I had a job, but there were still too many people who didn’t have insurance at all. Yet, none of them with a serious illness was ever refused by a hospital because they didn’t have insurance. They wound up paying the bill on an installment plan.

Currently, the Democrats are fighting against a plan similar to the one I described Canada to have. To me, granting the same amount of money to each state to take care of us makes total sense. Each state has the freedom to decide what kind of system it will have to care for us. If Illinois, a totally blue state wants to venture its bankrupt ass into a single payer system let them have at it. If Indiana wants to come up with something more cost-effective let them invent it. In either case any over-cost will be the burden on the residents living in the state.

A popular argument against the latest system proposed is that there is no provision to include insurance for customers who have a pre-existing condition. This is a very popular feature of Obama Care. It is also one of the reasons the Affordable Care Act evolved into the UN-affordable Care Act. My opinion on this matter is an argument addressed to insurance companies. Isn’t being born a pre-existing condition? When we are conceived we get a blueprint from our parents called DNA. As I understand it our DNA has within it all the reasons we get sick. Somewhere inside that helical ladder of the DNA molecule lies the nucleus for every genetic reason to get sick in a life time. After that we add into the mix the way we choose to live, eat, rest, etc. to make our health or unhealthiness more under our control. I have never heard a definition of what a pre-existing condition is. I think it means that if I apply for insurance and know I am a diabetic, that diabetes is not covered. What happens if I have diabetes and don’t know about it like too many people in the world have? Does the insurance lapse because it is discovered? Jimmy Kimmel’s argument about his son being born with a heart murmur keeps him from getting his son insured. If Jimmy was on a family plan doesn’t that include any new child born into his family? Of course if he wasn’t on the family plan and he had to purchase a separate insurance policy for the new-born I guess the kid is out of luck if Jimmy waited to buy it until he knew of his condition. It is my logical thinking that the difference between being insured, or not insured was the knowledge one has before the condition. What that leads me to is a proposal to insure your child as a fetus with a lifelong pre-condition policy. This policy would cover any pre-existing condition throughout one’s life from the instant of conception until death.

Well Grumpa Joe, how the hell am I going to do that? Does it mean I have to call my insurance agent from the bedroom, the back seat of my car, or the tent immediately after doing the deed? Of course not, you would call him upon learning of your success.

I am shocked that the insurance companies have not offered this kind of policy or policy-rider before. One can buy a life insurance policy at the time of birth, and I would say death can be defined as a pre-existing condition. We all know it is going to happen we just don’t know when. Isn’t the same true with diseases, viruses, or other conditions? Insurance companies argue that they will be taken advantage of by patients who are dying of some terrible disease, and will wait to buy insurance at the latest moment possible to cover their costs. Often they use the example of the man who crashes his uninsured car, and calls to buy insurance from the scene of the accident. I agree that scenario is not fair to the insurer, but I could buy a new car, and buy insurance from the dealership and crash the car on the way home, and the insurance company would have to cover me. I could argue that the accident was a pre-existing condition that one had by virtue of driving on any road. Diseases are no different, and insurance companies are going to have to deal with the facts and offer products for us to cover those situations.

cg591285c194185-2.jpg

You may choose to buy my arguments and proposals or not, but I recommend we all push for a practical resolution to the health care problem, and not some utopian country-bankrupting system like Obama Care is intended to be. The Bill currently being proposed by Congress labeled Graham-Cassidy appears to be the most logical approach to something that will work for all of us. Call your Congressman ans Senator to vote for this bill. Imagine 50 states working independently of one another with insurance companies from all over the USA and possible from outside to brainstorm how to meet the needs of each state population. The power of that number of teams working to find solutions is unimaginable. Certainly, it will be stronger than a bunch of bureaucrats working in the walnut paneled rooms of Washington, D.C.

If I may quote Forrest Gump’s mother “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you are going to get.” In this analogy our illnesses, accidents, conditions are all chocolates in the box and we have no pre-knowledge of which situations we will get in life. few of us dies of old age. As my mother used to counsel me “we all have to die from something.” Life is a pre-existing condition.

 

Filed under: Aging, family, health care | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

Civil War?

Posted on 29/06/2017 by Grumpa Joe

SleepingPoliticians-1.png

While Obama was running for his first presidential term I predicted that there would be civil war fought in our country. The division that occurred between the left and the right without any middle ground seemed to be too huge to keep it from happening. The war has not happened, at least not a shooting war, but we are still divided even more so today than in 2008. The democrats had all the power; a leftist president, and Democrats were the majority in both houses. There was no stopping them. The unaffordable Care Act was approved by bull dozing through without any prior review by either house. We as citizens criticized our leaders for not reading the bill. The plain and simple fact was that they were not given an opportunity to read it. Had they the chance there would have been public outcry to stop the bill before it came to a vote.

Currently, the Republicans have the power, and I fully expect them to squander the opportunity to do some real good for the country. How many of you remember Obama putting down John McCain by Obama for daring to present an argument against the ACA. Obama very arrogantly told him the elections have consequences and I won you lost. The democrats rallied around that audacity and steam rolled the country into believing their bill was the salvation of the country. After the ACA passed and it became obvious that it had major problems, Obama again arrogantly changed the law to his satisfaction without any notification of Congress, a violation of his authority and against the law. The Democrats totally supported him because he was the Messiah and the ACA was to magic cure-all bullet.

This week, I heard Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer from New York cry that  Republican Senators  won’t compromise and allow the Democrats to ruin new efforts to make the bill into something that could work. What upset me was a lack of outrage by Republicans. I never heard any of them say that elections have consequences, and we won, you lost. I have this feeling that Republicans still think the Democrats are willing to compromise for the good of the country. They are not willing to do anything but to win for their corrupt party.

It is sad that the press, and the Democrats get so worked up when President Trump fights back against some of the BS they throw at him. The Press truly get upset that anyone should treat them in this manner. What they don’t fully understand is that the civil war I have alluded to is taking place, and they are the enemy. They lament that they are only trying to do their job, they don’t deserve to be denigrated and on. They still don’t get that they are the problem, and when they spew there falsities as fact we the reader have no fact checker to check them with. To them I say, get over it, we won you lost. If the want us to treat them appropriately, they can begin by reporting fairly and honestly without bias to either side. Instead they choose to be on the side of the enemy. I say to you, keep plenty of fresh kleenex in your pockets to catch the alligator tears you will shed when recoil against you when you spew lies at us.

Another point that has me upset is that there are factions within the Republican party that fight against their own people. The Congress resembles the war in Syria; Syrians against Syrians, rebels against Syrians, ISIS against everybody, the USA against ISIS, and the Russians against the rebels. Mark my word, there will soon be a video game depicting this scenario. I hope the developer sends a free copy to every member of the Senate so they can learn from it.  What a mess.

49_021008_debate.gif.CROP.original-original.gif

 

Filed under: Conservative, Election, health care, Sarcasm | Tagged: , , , | 3 Comments »

Dear AARP

Posted on 18/04/2017 by Grumpa Joe

intellig-design-0004-2.jpg

I have several reasons for my dislike of the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons). You meddle too much in affairs you should stay out of. You are the antithesis of what you propose to be. You are a two-bit lobby group who believes it is your responsibility to care for retired people. I’ll give you one thing, you are a lobby group. You are no better than the charlatans who lobby and corrupt our Representatives for their socialist governments.

Today, I listened to a radio commercial in which you pleaded with me, and all those who qualify to be in your fold, to fight against all current proposals to reinvent the health care system. For one thing, you do not know what the new health care proposal is, neither does anyone else. You are reacting to hearsay and gossip. You did the same when Obama care came into being. Neither you nor anyone in our government knew a single thing about what was in the new law that the democrats shoved up our ass, but you promoted it as the salvation of the world. Later, after the stupidity of the bill became known you railed against it. During the George Bush years you promoted free drugs for seniors. What we got was more expensive than what was available to us on our own. The difference is that we now get six pages of non-sense from Medicare every month detailing the non-benefit. We pay for those pages of boiler plate, ninety percent of which is identical from month to month with a few basic numbers representing our expenditures thrown in. It is killing trees and not saving any lives. Keep your socialist empire out of my face. You are an insurance company, why didn’t you save the Obama care program? You didn’t because you also know it is a pile of crap. Yet you are telling us to defeat whatever comes out to replace it. Go to hell and stay there.

You may ask why am I so adamant about universal healthcare? Let me tell you in one word, SLAVERY. Universal single payer healthcare is a system that takes away all control  you have over your body. The government owns your body, and decides what it will do to care for it. You do not. That is about as close to being a slave as the slaves that were dragged here from Africa to work on plantations.

nancy-care0016.jpg

 

dr-consult0018.jpg

 

federaldeptobama0017.jpgrotorootercolono00031.jpg

atomicobamabomb0001.jpg

chainsyoucanbeli0004-2.jpg

Filed under: Aging, Conservative, health care | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

PSA-14092-Grimoba Speaks

Posted on 21/09/2014 by Grumpa Joe

090806-EOL-Optio0023

THIS IS A MUST READ! WE ALL NEED TO KNOW THIS!
Letter from a senior gentleman in Mesa, Arizona:
Dear Family, Friends, Neighbors and former Classmates,

I just found myself in the middle of a medical situation that made it very clear that “the affordable care act” is neither affordable, nor do they care.
I’ll go back about seven years ago to a fairly radical prostate surgery that I underwent. The Urologist (a personal friend) who performed the surgery was very concerned that it was cancer, though I wasn’t told this until the lab report revealed it was benign. Since that procedure, I have experienced numerous urinary tract infections, UTI’s. Since I had never had a “UTI” prior to the prostate surgery, I assume that it is one of the side effects from surgery, an assumption since confirmed by my Family Doctor.
The weekend of March 8-9, I was experiencing all the symptoms of another bout of UTI. By Monday afternoon the infection had hit with full force. Knowing that all I needed was an antibiotic, I went to an Urgent Care Center in Mesa, AZ., to provide a specimen, a requirement for getting the prescription. After waiting 45 min. to see the Doctor, I started getting very nauseous and light headed.
I went to the Receptionist to ask where the bathroom was as I felt that I was going to throw up. I was told that I would have to wait for the Doctor because I would need to leave a specimen and they didn’t want me in the bathroom without first seeing him.
That was when the lights went out, my next awareness was that of finding myself on the floor (in the waiting room) having violent dry heaves, and very confused. At this point, I tried to stand up but couldn’t make it, and they made it very clear they weren’t going to let me get up until the ambulance got there. By the way, when you’re waiting to see the Doctor and you pass out, you get very prompt attention.

Now, “the rest of the story”, and the reason for sending this to so many of you.
I was taken to the nearest hospital, to emergency. Once there, I was transported to an emergency examination room. Once I had removed my clothes and donned one of those lovely hospital gowns, I finally got to see a Doctor. I asked “what is going on” I’m just having a UTI, just get me the proper medication and let me go home. He told me that my symptoms presented the possibility of sepsis, a potentially deadly migration of toxins, and that they needed to run several tests to determine how far the infection had migrated.
For the next 3 hours I was subjected to several tests, blood draws, EKG’s, and demands for specimens. At about 7:30 the nurse came back to my room to inform me that one of the tests takes 1- 2 days to complete, I asked if they (the results)could be emailed, at which point she informed me that I wouldn’t need them emailed because I wasn’t going anywhere. I started arguing with her but was told, “if you don’t start behaving, I’ll start taking your temperature rectally, at which point I became a perfect gentleman. I did tell her I wanted to see the doctor because I had no intention of staying overnight.
Now, this is what I want each of you to understand, please read these next sentences carefully.The doctor finally came in to inform me that he was going to admit me. I said, “are you admitting me for treatment or for observation?” He told me that I would be admitted for observation. I said Doctor, correct me if I’m wrong, but if you admit me for observation my Medicare will not pay anything, this due to the affordable care act , he said that’s right, it won’t. I then grabbed for my bag of clothing and said, then I’m going home. He said you’re really too sick to be going home, but I understand your position, this health program is going to hit seniors especially hard.
The doctor then left the room and I started getting dressed, I was just getting ready to put my shoes on when another doctor (the closer) came into the room, he saw me dressed and said, “where do you think you are going?” I simply said “I’m going home, to which he replied, quite vociferously, no you aren’t. I said, “Doc, you and I both know that under the “affordable care act” anyone on Medicare who is admitted to a hospital for observation will be responsible for the bill, Medicare won’t pay a cent”. At which point he nodded in affirmation. I said, “You will either admit me for a specific treatment or you won’t admit me.” Realizing he wasn’t going to win this one, he said he would prepare my release papers.
A few minutes later the discharge nurse came to my room to have me sign the necessary papers, relieving them from any responsibility. I told her I wasn’t trying to be obstinate, but I wasn’t going to be burdened with the full (financial) responsibility for my hospital stay.
After making sure the door was closed, she said, “I don’t blame you at all, I would do the same thing.” She went on to say, “You wouldn’t believe the people who elect to leave for the same reasons, people who are deathly sick, people who have to be wheeled out on a gurney.” She further said, “The ‘Affordable Care Act’ is going to be a disaster for seniors. Yet, if you are in this country illegally, and have no coverage, you will be covered in full.”
This is not internet hype folks, this is real, I just experienced it personally. Moving right along, this gets worse.
Today I went to a (required) follow up appointment with my Arizona Family Practitioner. Since my white count was pretty high, the follow up was important. During the visit I shared the experience at emergency, and that I had refused to be admitted. His response was “I don’t blame you at all, I would have done the same thing”. He went on to say that the colonoscopy and other procedures are probably going to be dropped from coverage for those over 70.
I told him that I had heard that the affordable care act would no longer pay for cancer treatment for those 76 and older, is that true? His understanding is that it is true.
The more I hear, and experience the Affordable Care Act, the more I’m beginning to see that we seniors are nothing more than an inconvenience, and the sooner they can get rid of us the better off they’ll be.
November is coming folks, we can have an impact on this debacle by letting everyone in Congress know that their responsibility is to the constituents, not the president and not the lobbyists. We need to let them ALL know that they are in office to serve and to look after the BEST INTERESTS of “we the people”, their employers, and not to become self serving bureaucrats who serve only out of greed. And if they don’t seem to understand this simple logic, we’ll fire them.
On the mend, (signed)
REMEMBER: Demand your hospital admission is for TREATMENT and NOT for OBSERVATION!
SEND THIS TO EVERY SENIOR AND ALL
MILITARY (AVTIVE OR VET) AND LET THEM KNOW THIS IS HOW OUR REPRESENTATIVES ON CAPITOL HILL TREATS THOES THAT RISK IT ALL SO THEY CAN SET UP THERE AND ENJOY
ALL THE BENEFITS THEY EXEMT FROM THE REST OF US.

Filed under: Conservative, family, Government, health care, Society | Tagged: , , , | Leave a comment »

I Hate to Say I Told You So

Posted on 04/01/2014 by Grumpa Joe

but I did tell you about the evils of the Affordable Care Act long before it actually became an act so very fondly called Obama-Care. This old cartoon depicts exactly what the ACA is. It is a huge block of granite on a cart with square wheels being powered by the broken down Progressive party who sells us extremely very old ideas proven not to work under the guise of Progressivism. Good luck.

090913-RedsignHC0030What many people don’t realize is that this bill is illegal no matter what the Supreme Court has said. Congress is responsible for writing laws that need taxation and expenditure. The ACA came from the Senate who has no authority to write laws that tax us. Another reason the law is not valid, is that the Supreme court had to revise it to change the fees collected and call it a tax. The Supreme Court has no valid authority to re-write laws. They should have bounced it back to Congress for clarification of what to call the money charges. Was it a fee, or a tax. That would have are it a 50-50 crap shoot. Had they proceeded to call it a fee, the Court would have rejected the law. If they had revised it to call it a tax, the voters would hold them responsible for imposing huge taxes upon us. The Supreme Court specifically Chief Justice John Roberts who made the deciding vote and the opinion screwed up big time. The question is whether we can impeach him for his action.

Filed under: Cartoons, Conservative, family, health care, politics | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Next Page »