Health matters and denial...

I can't afford to be sick...and neither can anybody else unless they've been clever planners all their lives.

Health care has never been better for the affluent, or worse for the poor and obscure (elders), than it is these days. My own country GP charges $70 for an office visit...and he rarely ever lays a well manicured paw on his patients for any reason other than an outpatient surgical procedure. I've been seeing him for about seven years, and he used a stethoscope on me once, removed a suspicious mole once, and once he looked in my ears when I had a massive ear infection. Definitely not your touchy-hands-on healer.

Fine with me actually; I don't like anyone touching me anyhow, so long as he's agreeable with MY assessment of what's wrong and what's needed to fix a problem I might have, we've gotten along fine. But I wouldn't go to him for an emergency.

Unfortunately in my advanced years high blood pressure has become an issue, and he wants to try some cholesterol lowering drug. I wouldn't mind except that I know they are experimental at best, dangerous for many, and expensive as hell for those of us who can least afford it.

For years I've taken a generic beta blocker to keep my blood pressure in line. It's been effective and really cheap; even paying for it without insurance coverage only cost $13.00 a month before I went on Medicare. With Medicare...which I pay over $90.00 a month from my Social Security to maintain, and the part D drug supplementary "insurance" which costs $9.00 a month, my trusty pill now costs $26.00 a month...for which I co-pay $2.50 out-of-pocket at the pharmacy. Thank heavens I have a husband with a job. I would not survive if I wasn't a dependent.

If it sounds like I'm bitching, it's because I am. Even though so far I'm one of the lucky old raisins, with no reason to complain. What about the thousands of seniors, especially women who never had a career or a financial plan, kids to take care of them or even a husband in so many cases. What happens to these poor hapless masses?

I hope I'll be tough enough to just take what comes with however many tomorrows I have left with quiet grace...hope death comes quickly, while I'm sleeping perhaps. But y'know it never quite works out like we'd like.