Being an American right now is so disheartening. There's guns. Abortion. Insurrection. Non-stop insanity.

Because of all of that, we have forgotten how inhumane our health care system is.

I am supposed to have a hip replacement on Tuesday. This morning, the hospital called to verify my information. At the end, the rep cheerfully told me that they had verified my insurance information, and my portion for the surgery itself (so, not including the hospital stay) would be $5,447. This, I was told, covers my deductible and 20% (insurer pays 80%).

This is clearly a mistake. I had surgery there in 2020, and I paid $350 total.

But my point is that I am lucky. I have good insurance. I could pay for this if it were super-urgent.

So what happens to someone who cannot walk because they need a hip replacement, and who doesn't have $5-10K lying around? It would be inhumane to deny someone this surgery, especially if they need to walk to keep their job. People can literally be put out into the street for debts like that.

What is going on? We as a country rush from crisis to crisis, but we never actually fix anything.

That extends to little things too. Like, I get dozens of spam calls and texts every day. We used to have a do not call list that prevented this, but no more. Not only can we not fix new problems, we cannot even maintain the small gains that were won in the past.

I'm tired, folks. Sick and tired of how broken this country is. And I'm one of the lucky ones. I cannot imagine how it must be for people with real challenges and problems.

It is rather depressing, isn't it?

I try not to think about it too much.

Yep. Mr. Lisa and I are strongly encouraging our kids to GTFO of this country once they are done college. I hate to give up and leave because it's fewer dem votes but I do not see things getting any better as long as the gerrymandering and now the illegitimate supreme court is in place.

And we have insurance that would absolutely positively be $5000+ for any kind of surgery. Our family deductible is $7500 before our insurance pays one cent and then after that, they pay 80% of whatever the contracted rate is (which you don't know til you've already had the service!). And they are FAMOUS for covering the surgery but "oh look, the anesthesiologist is out of network so too bad so sad, we aren't paying any of the $5000 anesthesia bill."

And it's not cheap insurance either - it's through Mr. Lisa's employer and the amount coming out his paycheck every 2 weeks is close to 4 digits. I long for the days when a doctor visit was a $25 copay and an ER visit was $75. His company doesn't even offer plans like that anymore. This country is F'd.

Let's not forget the impact of the health insurance handcuffs.

I cannot imagine how I can possibly ever leave this job. I have good health insurance at very low cost because that's a perk of being a federal employee.

But Mr. Sphinx and I are old, and our medical needs are only headed in one direction. He doesn't have insurance because he works for a tiny firm.

So if I leave this job or die, he is out in the cold completely. And if I leave, I might wind up with an insurance plan that is barely better than no insurance at all.

And the gun thing . . . I think I have a fair assessment of the risk. The chances I will die in a mass shooting are pretty slim.

But I don't want to live in a society that believes so many things that contradict my own values and view of morality -- even if they are unlikely to affect me directly.

I will never need an abortion. But it is just so wrong that someone experiencing a miscarriage now has to tolerate the government getting all up in their personal business.

It is so wrong that people either think folks ought to be able to own assault weapons OR throw their hands up and say "Well, there are too many of them out there, so why bother."

I wish I spoke another language. Costa Rica looks mighty nice for expats.

quote:

I'm tired, folks. Sick and tired of how broken this country is. And I'm one of the lucky ones. I cannot imagine how it must be for people with real challenges and problems.

Same.

We are also very lucky. But I question almost daily whether it was the right choice to bring us back to the US.

Here in the US we have two things I love very much that we would not have if we still lived in Japan: our house (which is huge by Japan standards, and surrounded by so much greenery it looks like we live in the middle of a park), and my grand piano (which I probably couldn't have in Japan because our house would be too small to hold it.)

But there are a lot of things we *wouldn't* have if we lived in Japan, like medical bills, fear of gun violence etc....

Then again, Japan's record on women's rights is dismal, and there's that lovely xenophobia, plus typhoons and earthquakes...

So yeah, it's complicated.

quote:

Originally posted by markj:
It is rather depressing, isn't it?

I try not to think about it too much.

You are very privileged to be in that position. The vast majority of folks don‘t have that option.

Mary Anna and I have talked about this. Were it not for her desire to remain near her kids, I'd want to get the heck out of Dodge, and urge my kids to do the same. When there's a candidate for lieutenant governor in Minnesota openly talking about how we encourage abortions because we tell women that they should have careers, I realize that we have made a 70-year time jump back to the 1950's, and that there's a sizeable portion of our society composed of people (including women!) who want to treat women as second-class citizens. That's not OK. When you have an Arizona official saying that it's necessary to exploit prison inmates because rural counties depend on their cheap labor, that's not OK. When almost the entirety of one portion of one of the two major parties is willing to censure and kick out anyone who has the temerity to tell the truth and say that the 2020 election was run fairly, and that Trump just lost, that's not OK.

I thought we were past this sort of nonsense, but apparently not.

At least one of my kids is at least making noises about taking his family to Canada (or his wife is), and he's does the kind of work that would probably get them in, but I don't actually see it happening.

Another one has made noises about Canada, but weak ones and not recently.

The third is tied to Arizona for the next ten years, because that's where her children's father is. I wonder if Arizona is going to remain livable for ten years.

Honestly, though, if this country gets much further into its death spiral, it's gonna take Canada with it. And probably the rest of the world.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings...

What gets better when you hit 65 is Medicare. It really works and it’s really cheap.

I lived through Vietnam and I’ll live through this too.

quote:

Originally posted by Mary Anna:


Honestly, though, if this country gets much further into its death spiral, it's gonna take Canada with it. And probably the rest of the world.

1.That
2. My main assets are farmland. It is hard to move. It is also in trouble due to the climate.
3. Bob wants to stay for the medical benefits

Huh? The right wing will have great medical benefits for its elite. The rest of us will beg for alms.

quote:

Originally posted by Steve Miller:
What gets better when you hit 65 is Medicare. It really works and it’s really cheap.

I lived through Vietnam and I’ll live through this too.

Agreed. And yeah, Medicare is pretty awesome.

But it's SOCIALISM!!!