Climate March / TrumpCare Protest

It's been a busy week for the resistance, comrades!

We braved the weather, and the thunderstorms let up for the Climate March. This is the type of thing that made the ancient believe in Gods. "We are marching for you, Earth Mother, have pity on us for the two-hour window of our March." And lo, there was no rain for the duration of the March, and afterward we sacrificed a chocolate glazed donut at the Tim Horton's downtown.

Then of course, Thursday the House voted to massively personally screw me over. In the past, the ACA was a nice thing I supported for other people, and it did increase my insurance premiums at work for $100 a month, that was okay. This time, though, the AHCA didn't hit me in the pocketbook for $100, they gouged me for my health plus potentially tens of thousands of dollars a year.

The first place I went for information was redstate.com, because I figured I should go to a Republican source if I didn't want any liberal bias. What I heard was "There aren't that many people with pre-existing conditions." Given that everyone in my family had a pre-exisitng condition by 15, except for the people who got cancer by 40, that gives me no comfort.

Here's a quote from the second place I went for information: "[Older Americans not yet eligible for Medicare] will face higher premiums than they currently do, and the younger people will face [lower] premiums." So, like life Insurance, and car insurance. Fair. 

But then I started to hear about how this will ripple directly into my work insurance. It could take away my home ("States get to decide if they'll cover you") and my security (My medicine will be covered until the work insurance decides I've hit a cap ... which would happen every March, I imagine, as soon as the clinical trial stops covering it in 2018).

And I know, I should look at this as "Old sick people make sacrifices so young people can have health care," only wouldn't those young people start being changed higher levels when they get sick? So, even they don't get anything out of it.

So, I was enraged. That's why Gary and I took a long lunch on Friday and gathered at Senator Blunt's office, where I accepted the first sign I was offered and was randomly interviewed by someone from KMOX.

Come to think of it, maybe the sign is what drew him to me. Before he even asked me my opinion, he asked me to read my sign into the microphone. I suppose he thought if I was too shy to say "VAGINA" I wouldn't have an opinion.

(Also, my hips look freakishly narrow in that photo. I wish I could pivot to that angle whenever I meet someone in the hallway at work.)

I was actually able to string two words together, and when I was stumped I punted the question over to Gary, who answered well but was NOT quoted, because that article has exactly one point and evidently I summed it up with:

"I know how much my medication costs for my MS and they would just blow through that $8 billion pretty fast.”

.... and that was all they used of my many pithy statements.

Afterward, I did the math, and actually if you multiply the 360,000 Americans with my type of MS and my meds, that's $25B a year right there. Then I realized, nah, the givernment's not giving out the premium drugs, they'll dispense the "cheap" $1,300 a month medicine. That only adds up to $5B. Fellow MSers, let's make sure we get dibs on that extra $8 billion before those slackers with diabetes try to get some.

Gary keeps saying it'll be killed in the Senate, but that sounds too much like, "Trump will never be elected."

 

Comments

[Hattie]

Glad you are getting the word out into medialand. We kind of yawned about ACA too, since we have Medicare, and I never thought about what it meant to so many.
I don't understand why the Republicans are being so mean.

[Kristie]

Yes, also the same thing my husband said, and I reminded him how he kept telling me Trump would never be elected. I still can't get over the way they all ran to the White House for the Bud Light party. I agree that 8 Billion dollars is nothing. They are evil and dumb. And drink crappy beer.

[theQueen]

Hattie - Because they were forced to be too nice for eight years, I guess.
Kristie - All beer is crappy beer to me.