MEDICINE, MY HEALTH, OR A CHEESE BURGER!

MEDICINE, MY HEALTH, OR A CHEESE BURGER!

(Bloomberg/Frazer Chronicle)

Well I finely understand firsthand what they mean when they say, "either choose food or your medicine." I had my six month diabetes doctor’s appointment Tuesday, October 9^th and was made aware of the cost of a different and new pill that would keep my condition pretty much the same. The choices were to continue taking my current medicine and also work-out six days a week for an hour each day with an elevated heart rate, or spend hundreds of dollars a month on the new wonder drug.

I have Medicare, which has reduced my social security benefit and additional health coverage that I pay for. Yet between my two insurances, I'm left out in the cold with regards to the new, stronger stuff that will probably make my quality of life a whole lot better.....I could steal that occasional piece of chocolate cake that I so desire.

Guess I can't get a break with a new drug that can help me enjoy a little bit of paradise and the sweets that I desire. You know it’s funny, when you can have something anytime that you want, it’s no big deal, you can grab it later, but when your desire is like a piece of fruit from the forbidden tree, you can never get enough.

For me it does gonna be the six day, six hour work-out because my alternative is the dreaded syringe, and a poke each and every day. Yup its either insulin or the Arnold Schwarzenegger style work-out, gee I can hardly wait, no telling where a new and rejuvenated body might lead me.....I do have the blood pressure of an 18 year old, 112 over 72 on Tuesday.

Seriously though, getting back to the subject at hand.....peoples health, medical attention, how accessible it is, and more important, how is it paid for, and by whom. Look enough of this Mitt Romney stuff about only 47% of American citizens pay taxes, or whatever the figure is, everybody pays taxes, whether land tax, income tax, an import tax, sales tax, or some local yocal tax.....everybody pays some sort of tax.

A universal medical insurance plan, paid for by all tax payers on a graduated basis, a trickle-up if you will, where the rich pay a higher medical tax, the middle class a lesser amount, and the poor next to nothing, and in some cases, nothing. And by the way, a major share of people that won't pay any medical tax in my plan are.....well, color people, blacks or whatever; at least everybody is medically covered.

I bring up the race issue with regards to entitlements, or because of people of color seem to be the brunt whenever the conversation centers on government programs, or give-aways. Why in this day and age of racial awareness and enlightened thinking with regards to the races would people point a bony finger at people of color?

MY WIFE HAS AN INTERESTING POINT:

My wife had an interesting point the other day when we were discussing government spending, how the budget affects American citizens, and the entitlement give-away programs. I have to confess, I never thought about where funds would come from for entitlement programs if the country shifted money away from the defense department.

Once again, Candace Joan was "right on" when she asked the question about funding entitlements. Her question, "where would the funds come from for all these programs," I of course jumped right in with my typical disdain for a thoughtful process whenever confronting my wife, and her opinions. I said, "from defense department spending." You should have seen my jaw drop when she calmly looked me straight in the eye and coolly responded, "How? We are already borrowing money from foreign countries to pay for our war effort."

I was thunderstruck, left speechless, and quickly had to admit that Candy Jo was right on.....once again. Of course it’s true, we are a big debtor country when it comes to defense spending.....it’s because we spend so much on defense.

BACK TO BASICS:

I lost a brother-in-law in August; I have a friend who has many ailments, and another pal who had a mini stroke at 50. In a time when each needed to concentrate on his health problems, problems jumped up and took energy away from a healing process, it made each of these people uneasy when they should have been totally focused on their issue at hand.

My wife had wonderful insurance through her job at the City of Green Bay, and frankly we both became complacent with regards to exactly how health covering insurance really works. The nature of the beast, "and it is a beast," can be summed up in one word, complicated.

Some companies rely on their customer’s inability to grasp the nooks and crannies of their chosen health plan. My wife and I still have the same insurance.....and we pay close to $400 a month, which is about three times what we used to pay.

And even though we pay around $300 a month more for health coverage, I still can't get every drug on the market for my health affliction, somehow that just doesn't seem right. In the olden days, people either doctored themselves, or relied on the good old "country doctor." The guy with pictures of every baby that he had delivered, the guy who took apple pies, or an occasional hog for payment

Of course those days are gone, I don't want those days back, we have progressed to a point where there seems to be a treatment for everything. We are ushered into a sparkling steel and concrete building, complete with all sorts of shiny new apparatuses designed to help in the treatment of a doctor’s case load.

Millions of people walk into these cathedrals of health treatments, and walk out either free of pain or have been shown a way to combat their illness. Sadly millions of other people are met at the gate of these places and basically told to "take a hike." No insurance, no funds to pay "get lost."

Oh sure hospitals are required by law to treat people for an injury, or a flare-up of an existing ailment, but directly after these people are treated for whatever ails them, the medical system cuts them from any further treatment.

It seems as if Republicans and Neo-Con conservative, (there is a difference you know), could care less about those less fortunate people. Guess they never heard the song, "We are the people, we are one."

These are the people, like Paul Ryan, or Michelle Obama who preach working out, watching what you eat, and to a degree live a stable life-style. Well guess what, it's really not how people life, some people do not have the time or the where-with-all to work out, and others simply grab whatever is handy.

I suppose in the near future there will be food cops, soda cops, midriff cops, and another cop to probe a person’s thinking process. I can hardly wait.