Healthcare

Whoa – I feel as if I have been kicked in the gut. The republicans passed their healthcare bill (calling it a non-healthcare or tax credit bill seems more appropriate), and I feel like I have a target on my back. I am getting up there in age (okay – I am old), I have a pre-existing condition with expensive meds to take, and I am a women. If the consequences of these things weren’t so horrible, I would feel like I won the lottery, but this isn’t a lottery I want to win. They say that pre-existing conditions will be covered, but they are letting states opt out of the piece that doesn’t allow insurance companies to charge more for them. So yeah – they might be covered, but at a much higher rate than I am charged now. It’s kind of like saying to a poor person that there is food available, it’s just at $100 dollars per plate – you can’t afford it, but it is available.

There is something in the bill that allows companies to charge older people much more money, at a time when we older people can’t really afford to pay much more money.

And don’t even get me started on the woman thing. Being a woman apparently is a pre-existing condition in and of itself.

I really don’t understand why anyone in this country should have to go bankrupt because they become sick. In my mind this is insane. I did absolutely NOTHING – good, bad, or indifferent – that made me get this condition I have. Most people who become ill did not cause it. We are not bad people, although to hear many congressmen talk, we have brought on our conditions ourselves. If we just led better, purer lives, and believed in their god we would not be in the position we are in. I call BS and I am offended  by this line of thought.

They will even allow little babies who are born with something wrong with them to be labeled as  having a pre-existing condition. They are fine with the fact that these children will be labeled for life and never be able to get health insurance at a decent rate, just because of something they have no control over.

I am trying to just breathe and let it go, and hope that the Senate can hold the line. I am afraid of what is to come, but I am still hopeful.