Richest Country in the World - No Insurance

Living in one of the richest, if not the richest, country in the world, it is quite disturbing when a friend needs medical attention, but has no health insurance.

A 33-year-old male, (we’ll call him Jethro) goes to a local emergency room with stabbing pains in his back that are only relived when the pain is instead stabbing his chest.  The ER doctors diagnosed him with kidney stones and sent him on his way.

Jethro is pretty tall, over 6 feet, and the way he is built, you might notice that his lungs are well above where his kidneys are.  There is no way this has anything to do with kidneys.

Finally Jethro finds a doctor willing to dig a little deeper.  Turned out he had a tumor, attached to his lung and his rib cage.  The doctors said it was not lung cancer, but some sort of gonadal germ cell tumor in his lungs.  They tell him its the easiest to treat and within 6 months he should be well, with a few shots and a sugar-coating.

Jethro lives in a tri-state area where he has access to small town communities or big city accomodations.  The ER he had visited was, of course, big city.  Because he has no insurance, they referred him to a doctor in his own state.  Jethro is unmarried, and lives with his aging father to help out with whatever needs to be done. And at the time of all of this, with the state of depression the US is headed for, he is also unemployed.  His father is retired and gets a small pension each month.

So to get some help with his medical bills and groceries, Jethro gets signed up for Medicaid and Food Stamps.  Apparently he was in the highest bracket for his unemployment benefits and because he didn’t have a home in his own name, the local government has labeled him “indigent” and so he is approved for the medicaid, which certainly takes a lot of the bills out of the way.  However because of his living arrangements and the amount of his unemployment check, they denied him Food Stamps because he earns too much on his UNemployment check!  That’s a whole ‘nother rant though.

What is wrong with this country that we will butt into the problems of other nations and criticize the handling of their peoples, while we treat our own poor and helpless as second-class-citizens in a third-world- country?

Meanwhile, Jethro has been put through the ringer with horrible chemo therapy that made him sick and collapsed several veins with the injections. This has not “cured” the cancer, but instead doubled the size of the tumor.  Did these well-trained physicians miss something?  Did they underestimate this “little cancer”?  Or perhaps, because he is uninsured, they see that as permission to use him as a guinea pig?

Jethro was diagnosed with cancer this past March. Within 6 months, the doctors predicted he would be cancer-free. His last chemotherapy was about 1 month ago and he started the radiation just afterwards.  The radiation was expected to ease the horrible and constant pain, while reducing the size of the tumor.  At that point, they were hoping to decrease it enough to be able to do surgery and remove the tumor.  Jethro had his last radiation one week ago, and now we wait for the verdict from the doctor.

This is why it is so important to have faith.  Jethro is such a good man, though he’ll be the first to tell you he is not perfect.  He is so young and still has so much life to live.  I have high hopes that God has taken this into His hands and that He decides to grace us all with the presence of “Jethro” for a while longer.

May you be lucky enough to befriend such a person at least once in your lifetime.

And may our own government figure out a way to allow each and every person here to be insured and have the best chances and least worries should such a situation arise where medical help is needed for the best chances of survival.

I can’t help but wonder when the doctors underestimated this time and again, if they would have had more incentive to properly diagnose and treat were Jethro properly insured.

Here’s a link I came across today:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               http://www.capitolconnect.com/ama/voicefortheuninsured/

If this could help, and you would like to participate, please click the link and fill out the  information.  They will get it to your legislature.

Who Can Fix The U.S.A.?

The election process only works when people vote.

And it helps to have someone worthy of that vote.

Our country is in a bind, ladies and gentlemen.

I recently received an email about having oil in the midwest that we can’t touch because of issues with the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency).

We import oil at 60-150 USD per barrel.  Is it more environmentally correct to fight wars and haul crude across the seas, paying more than we can afford in blood, lives, and yes, even money?  Do we have our priorities straight?

What US citizen doesn’t have a family member or personally know someone who is in the military?  If that’s a stretch, then maybe what US citizen doesn’t at least know of a family with a member in a branch of the US Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and/or Border Patrol? I’m afraid that if there is a stretch left, it might be that you “knew” someone who fought bravely for his or her country.

We need someone brave and strong and moral to lead this country, and fix it.  Not just boost the economy.  Not just offer some quick fixes.  Not just bring our men and women home, and certainly not just to send them right back out again!  (Seen the movie Stop Loss?)

We, the people need someone to show us how to be strong without being the neighborhood bullies.

We need someone who will bring our jobs back to the United States, and not lease them out to every other country, especially the ones with sweatshops and basic slavery.

We need to learn to buy America, and “made in America” needs to mean something good again.

We need to shop at our local mom/pop shops and keep the money here, instead of putting it into the chains with the headquarters overseas.

We need to work on our own country before we go around telling everyone else what they are doing wrong.

We need to offer military training to other countries so they can defend their own borders.

And when we go off to war, we need to know who we’re after, and go after them until we get them.

We need a hero who will stand up for the US first, and worry about being politically correct after we’ve taken care of our own home.

Where is our hero?

Who would be willing to even consider such a shitty job, with crappy hours, and loads of reporters waiting on you to make the first mistake?

Who would be willing to clean up Washington, DC while he/she was there?

Who would be willing to change some laws?

Who would be willing to set term limits for all of our government offices that participate in running this country?

We need to start looking now!  Someone needs to step up to the plate and knock us a home run!  We’ve only got 3 more years, to find you, to tell people about you, and to get you elected and moved in.  We need you yesterday!

The Walmart.com Fiasco

Hopefully none of you work for walmart.com (I don’t have a problem per say with the stores, just the website) but if you do, I hope you weren’t unfortunate enough to have dealt with me.

I ordered a big toy for my precious little baby, an exersaucer activity center and had arranged for it to be sent to my local store. I had used that very convenient site-to-store ordering option many times & never had a problem…until then. I was given an estimated arrival date, which in the past was always an overestimate & my items would come in early. When the item had not arrived by the due date I started to get antsy. I tracked the order & it said “in transit”..okay I can live with that. Every day thereafter I checked & it continually said “in transit”..now mind you that this was “in transit” from Tennessee to Georgia.

After a week I emailed customer service about the order & was given an autoresponse with directions for tracking my order (I really hate autoresponses). I then sent another email asking to be contacted by a real person & they told me the same thing, that it was in transit & to wait a couple more days.

By this time I was really getting pissed but I did as I was told & waited 3 more days which happened to fall on a weekend (almost 6 weeks after I placed the order). I had finally had enough & sent a rather nasty email demanding to know where my item was, just how the hell it could possibly take 2 weeks to make a 150 mile trip from Tenn. to GA, and that I had better be contancted by a person.

I was promptly answered by yet another real person who finally admitted to me that my order was “lost” somewhere..this is a big box, like 4ft x 4ft.. hard to lose in my opinion..I was so angry by this time that I could have thrown my computer out the door.

They offered to either reorder the stupid thing or give me a refund. I opted for the refund which was initially purchased on a gift card..yet another pain in my ass. I was given directions for getting a refund for a gift card which was to call a different walmart department & give them my order number & that they would take care of it.

Keep in mind that this was on a Sat., so when I called about my refund they didn’t answer..all I got was a recording that said “please call back during normal business hours”..wth! Don’t bother to tell me what those normal business hours might be. I emailed them back yet again to tell them what had happened & that I was very upset & had lost all faith in walmart.com and sadly to say that I would never use the site-to-store service again.

I was a little dramatic, I know, but I wanted that toy for my baby! I felt so anxious, like she was going to be developmentally slowed by not having it right then.

Now, if that wasn’t icing on the cake..they sent me a customer service satisfaction survey and man did I let them have it. I put extremely dissatisfied on every question and told them that they need to have more real people answering emails, not the stupid computer.

Needless to say that Monday morning I did get my refund and have since bought the toy from the store. It wasn’t the exact one I wanted but I was not waiting another day on those people.

Dogsitting

Have you ever dog-sat? As in, been responsible for someone else’s pet? If you are considering doing so, you might want to reconsider.
In your life there are certain people you just can’t seem to say no to. And so we are left for a week with a playful rambunctious pit bull mix.
I’ve heard stories, and I’ve had a run-in of my own with a “pack of wild pits”. They were smaller, and because they didn’t turn on me while I tried to beat them off a spaniel dog, apparently they were also the more “gentle” of the breed.
But this one, her name is Molly. She is quick and sounds quite vicious when her bowl is involved. While she might be a tough breed, she sorely tested her limits today. When my husband came home and she put four distinct claw marks on his car…. he was ready to apologize while reporting the death of said pup to her owner. (Hope she doesn’t screw up anymore because this is only the second day of seven!)
Wanna find out quick who the alpha male is here?
Claw up that paint job again!

No animals were harmed in the making of this story, and so far none have been killed either.

Update: We made it through that week. Molly survived as well. By the end of her visit, she and I had come to an understanding. Should my loved one wish to leave Ms Molly with us again, I suggest he visit with her more often, so neither of us forgets the rules.
Ah, its nice to only have our own pets to deal with again!

Trying to Teach an Old Dog New Tricks….

I am in the process of learning many different things, at once.
This is not such a good thing. I get easily distracted and tend to get less done than usual. Like getting an article posted vs learning the back end of Word Press.
So I appreciate your visits, and your comments, and of course, your patience while I try to figure which direction is up.
Please don’t forget about us here, thinking because I’ve been inactive that I am not doing something. And be ready because I’ve got some back-up standing by. So when we get this where we want it, you’ll be entertained by some rabid rebels. In other words, please check back soon!

Ordering online, false promises of next day delivery

I recently ordered an item online and paid a premium for ‘next day delivery’, which is plastered all over their website as a selling point.  It was described as ‘Low Stock’, (not ‘No Stock’).  The next day I received an email saying there would be a short delay, as they had to get the item from another branch - this would take 4 days, which, counting the weekend, turned out to be 4 business days.  If you add to this the time taken to send the item it took the delivery time to a week.

I asked why couldn’t I order the item from the ‘other branch’ myself and was vaguely told that they wouldn’t have the facilities to send it to me.  They wouldn’t tell me the name or location of this ‘other branch’.  Other branch my foot!  It was probably a warehouse or storage facility.

Before cancelling the order, I checked with another online company who claimed to have the same item ‘In Stock’.  Although masquerading under a different name, it was in fact the same company.  I spoke to the same person - and guess what?  They were out of stock.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but I can’t believe the dishonesty of some companies.  Lying about having the item in stock, not living up to their promise of next day delivery (it did say ’subject to availability’ - but they claimed it was available, otherwise I would not have ordered).  The final annoying thing was not even being able to take my business elsewhere as the two companies were in fact both the same, although with different websites!

In the end I was so angry I cancelled my order, not that anybody cared.

Pop Star Propaganda

Washington, 05 March 2008 — Just days after San Francisco-based Financial Title Company filed notice of a trustee’s sale of Michael Jackson’s Neverland Valley Ranch, CNN reports that the self-proclaimed “King of Pop” is working out financial details to keep the property.
An auction had been set for March 19 at the Santa Barbara County courthouse. Michael left Neverland in 2005 after being found not guilty of child molestation charges. He reportedly owes more than $24 million on the estate.

- By Mary Morningstar

Source: VOANews.com

Just wondering if anyone remembers this? Good manners tells us to not speak ill of the dead.  I wonder if all this publicity over Michael Jackson’s death is just the opposite of good manners though.  The press was posting scandal after scandal while the talk show hosts were full of puns and jokes and people coming out of the woodwork to say their child had been abused.

And now, the legend of pop is dead and hasn’t been so popular in many decades.

Today I heard a child say, “I like Michael Jackson before he was white when he took that bat and broke those windows because God let him do it.”  There was a reference to “Bad” in there somewhere. I don’t know this child well, so I don’t know if this is his summary of Michael’s life or if he was repeating someone else’s.

In the past couple of days I’ve seen so many advertisements on the pages too about getting my Michael Jackson tee shirt, or showing off my charm bracelet with an image of Michael Jackson, and I don’t even know what else I didn’t even bother to read.

While ‘jazzercleaning” the other day, I put on the 70’s music channel and they were playing some of the early stuff. Then about an hour or so later, when I turn it off, they’re playing his voice again. How long before the Michael Jackson Thriller station is part of the Sirius tunage?

We watched our first episode of American Idol this past week too.  They were down to 13 contestants and it was going to be a 2 hour special. This is where I usually start to get interested in the show, because the silliness seems to have gone with the first castoffs, and the ones left are going to be heard. This week the contestants could pick a Michael Jackson song to cover. And one must wonder if this was in the writings last week, or if they had to learn his songs in just a couple of days?

I’d already read predictions of the expected music sales to skyrocket, and that was printed the day after his death.

I guess he’d love the theatrics of it all, if he could see this great world’s sorrow and economy boost.  I just can’t help but note the ironic humor of it all. 
I had a comment on here asking if I had read this article of Michael Jackson’s death, with a link, and a question about whether I was going to write about it on my blog.  That was the night after he died.  And when I searched that title, it came up as comments on several other sites as well. I deleted it as spam, so you won’t find it here.

Why is Michael suddenly so popular?  Where were all these fans even a month ago?  Who gets all these profits now?  Is he really gone, or is this just some sort of conspiracy to get us to buy a whole bunch of American pop star collectibles in Chinese bulk on sale exclusively at Walmart’s Rollback Prices?

And then I have to admit that I have frequented more searches of late as well. Mine were for educational purposes though. I am only in this for the rant!