HI Tricia, Spade, and anyone else!
This has turned into a very interesting discussion. Sorry it has taken me so long to reply. I understand the point about plowing through assets. I went through a divorce right before the diagnosis, which led to my ostomy, and will always have to worry about that cancer returning in addition to managing the lymphoma I was diagnosed with during the divorce. It's been a crazy few years, and dealing with the pouch and all that entails is just the tip of the iceberg, but I try to stay positive and keep smiling. I really want to return to work, but as I never really had a "career" to speak of, I am in the position of looking for jobs that I can do where I can have some flexibility. I really feel like I am being held back because it seems everything I am qualified to do is somehow not possible for me at this time.
Anyway, I feel really hopeful since the SCOTUS decision about the PPACA came down. I thought I was filing for divorce at the "right time," and then the market tanked and there went 45% of the IRA, then illness, bankruptcy, had to sell the house and move to another state. I have looked at high-risk pool insurance, and it turns out I can't buy it because you have to go straight into it from COBRA, and that got screwed up during the D. So what other choice do I have? My story is so long and convoluted I would never try to tell it here, and I sure made some bad decisions, but hopefully that's in the past. I approach decision-making very carefully these days, and that is a challenge since I've always been kind of a free spirit.
As for your point about welfare and all that? I totally understand where you are coming from. I try to remind others what friends and family members have said to me, and that is that those programs are in place to help people like us who have hit a rough patch. It has been extremely difficult for me to find myself on public assistance, but I thank God every day that it's been there for me. My mother was a social worker, and she saw the very worst kind of poverty and spent her entire life helping people. I am all for the programs designed to help people, and the biggest problem has been that they were never completely funded because there is and always will be an underlying societal attitude that blames the impoverished for their own poverty. It's an age-old story. That said, I've also known personally and anecdotally the person you speak of who sits at home, having baby after baby, on food stamps, receiving extra money for kids who have "disabilities" like ADHD and so forth. It's infuriating, I know. These are the people who were raised in "the system" and know better than anyone else how to milk it. But what can we do? I would never take food, shelter, and medical care from a child in order to punish the parent for milking the system forever! The only solution I see in all of this is Medicare for all no matter how old or young. We are supposed to be a civilized nation (U.S.), and I believe greatness is measured by how we care for the neediest among us. I would love to go to work, but I am in the situation where poverty has been forced upon me because of medical bankruptcy. If I allow it to bother me constantly, I can become very unhappy very quickly. I hope the system changes for the better, and our children and grandchildren won't have to battle these issues. It will be wonderful when they can focus on their God-given potential and make the world a better place.
And yes! Stockpile those supplies. I get as many as I can as often as I can, and that goes for all medicines, too. I have been without meds and down to one pouch too often to ever take that for granted again. When the insurance company I had before sent the wrong supplies, I gave them to my WOCN nurse because I couldn't send them back, and I could not use them. I plan to upgrade on this site, too, so I can be a part of the supplies exchange. I know there's one somewhere on here, but I can't participate until I have a full membership. Soon!
Thanks for letting me vent!
Tamarah
This has turned into a very interesting discussion. Sorry it has taken me so long to reply. I understand the point about plowing through assets. I went through a divorce right before the diagnosis, which led to my ostomy, and will always have to worry about that cancer returning in addition to managing the lymphoma I was diagnosed with during the divorce. It's been a crazy few years, and dealing with the pouch and all that entails is just the tip of the iceberg, but I try to stay positive and keep smiling. I really want to return to work, but as I never really had a "career" to speak of, I am in the position of looking for jobs that I can do where I can have some flexibility. I really feel like I am being held back because it seems everything I am qualified to do is somehow not possible for me at this time.
Anyway, I feel really hopeful since the SCOTUS decision about the PPACA came down. I thought I was filing for divorce at the "right time," and then the market tanked and there went 45% of the IRA, then illness, bankruptcy, had to sell the house and move to another state. I have looked at high-risk pool insurance, and it turns out I can't buy it because you have to go straight into it from COBRA, and that got screwed up during the D. So what other choice do I have? My story is so long and convoluted I would never try to tell it here, and I sure made some bad decisions, but hopefully that's in the past. I approach decision-making very carefully these days, and that is a challenge since I've always been kind of a free spirit.
As for your point about welfare and all that? I totally understand where you are coming from. I try to remind others what friends and family members have said to me, and that is that those programs are in place to help people like us who have hit a rough patch. It has been extremely difficult for me to find myself on public assistance, but I thank God every day that it's been there for me. My mother was a social worker, and she saw the very worst kind of poverty and spent her entire life helping people. I am all for the programs designed to help people, and the biggest problem has been that they were never completely funded because there is and always will be an underlying societal attitude that blames the impoverished for their own poverty. It's an age-old story. That said, I've also known personally and anecdotally the person you speak of who sits at home, having baby after baby, on food stamps, receiving extra money for kids who have "disabilities" like ADHD and so forth. It's infuriating, I know. These are the people who were raised in "the system" and know better than anyone else how to milk it. But what can we do? I would never take food, shelter, and medical care from a child in order to punish the parent for milking the system forever! The only solution I see in all of this is Medicare for all no matter how old or young. We are supposed to be a civilized nation (U.S.), and I believe greatness is measured by how we care for the neediest among us. I would love to go to work, but I am in the situation where poverty has been forced upon me because of medical bankruptcy. If I allow it to bother me constantly, I can become very unhappy very quickly. I hope the system changes for the better, and our children and grandchildren won't have to battle these issues. It will be wonderful when they can focus on their God-given potential and make the world a better place.
And yes! Stockpile those supplies. I get as many as I can as often as I can, and that goes for all medicines, too. I have been without meds and down to one pouch too often to ever take that for granted again. When the insurance company I had before sent the wrong supplies, I gave them to my WOCN nurse because I couldn't send them back, and I could not use them. I plan to upgrade on this site, too, so I can be a part of the supplies exchange. I know there's one somewhere on here, but I can't participate until I have a full membership. Soon!
Thanks for letting me vent!
Tamarah