Sickening Humiliation 3

Well, doesn't THAT make your hair stand on end?

The last thing I ever expected, or wanted, is that I be dependent on medications. Not just need them for something or other. Dependent, as in, needing the little puppies to keep on going.

So, I go to CVS to pick up the latest in the long line of neurological munchies that have been partially successful in controlling the TLE -- Alert Reader will remember TLE from previous entries -- and, when I get there, turns out it's gonna cost me about $160 for the month. For one med. And I need FIVE meds. What happened, I inquired, to my prescription drug coverage? Oh, you need a new card, they replied. Eventually, I paid out of pocket for enough to last the weekend, until I could get a new card, and we parted ways.

I went out to the parking lot and just sat in the car and shook. Alert Reader will also remember Miles the Cat. I had a vision of dividing a can of his cat food three ways, and sending him off to beg food from the neighbors, or maybe catch a mouse. Unfortunately, my mousing skills have declined over the years, and we will need him to bring home the bacon. Nice metaphor.

I have no doubt that this episode will all work out, my card will be restored, and I will again join the ranks -- maybe 25% -- of Americans with decent prescription drug coverage. Note the "Americans" in that sentence.

I need these meds to live. If there were no prescriptions coverage -- or only that incomprehensible, apparently marginally useful Medicare D -- we would be able to survive economically for a couple of years, eating up whatever savings there is. And then what? The one med I needed that day was actually a very standard drug, used for almost two decades, with a huge user base. Not expensive, relatively. If the others are similar -- and I think so, given the history and the use -- that brings us to a whopping $800 each month for meds. Call it 10K a year.

And that is only one of us, and only if I don't get any more problems -- both unlikely. Fine; call the annual amount, in about a decade, of maybe 25K, in 2010 dollars. At least.

So here I am: The Perfected American. All the good demographics. The most middle-class of the middle-class, highly educated, a credit to my community, hard-working, white, home-owning, English-speaking, non-criminal, so on, so forth -- and it comes to this. Neither of our sets of parents, three of whom reached very advanced age, and the fourth of whom is still advancing, ever had any problem paying for docs, or prescriptions, or hospitals. None. I'm now 65. When I hit 90, we and Miles the Cat will be watching carefully to see who goes first. We will all be holding knives and forks.

I also know a bunch of folks who worked for big companies -- Polaroid, ADL -- who had been promised, and had contributed to, decent pensions. The funds were looted by the administrations of the companies, and folks with 25, 35, 40 years service had nothing. Nothing. No 401K. And there was no recourse. And, of course, there was nothing for prescriptions, or health care. The victims were stunned for a bit, then raging and they still are. Fortunately, the miscreants were all held accountable; they were stripped of their loot and jailed. Oh, wait....that "held accountable" thing -- never has worked.

I've always wanted, and pushed for, and been willing to pay for, a health care system that cared for all. But that was theoretical; it was for a human right, and a social good. Not any more, bucko. Nossir. Now it's me, now it gets serious.

I am fearful for my own financial future, but I am ashamed that we won't take care of each other. We won't even take care of our own, of Americans. During the excruciating debate of the last two years, all I could hear was this: No. We will not care for our own.

How humiliating that was for us. Leave the wounded on the battlefield. You just go ahead and die out there; we won't even figure a way to get you some pills, and we won't say why. And so goes our freedom, and our basic right to live.

I get the sickening feeling that we've always been this way. and nothing will save us. There is an endless supply of white-toothed, big-haired hucksters groveling for cash, babbling about bootstraps, and, by golly, doing things the American way and living out the American Dream.

From here, that sounds to me like "Screw you; I got mine. Go die." American dream, indeed.

Let's look at it this way: If I ever have to choose between meds and gas, and the meds are more expensive than the gas, I'm gonna buy the gas, and one of the lighters conveniently sold at the gas stations, and I'm gonna use the spiffy iPhone to find some home addresses.

If the powers-that-be are so vicious and craven that they cut off my life -- well, they're gonna go before I do. The folks who run things have decided against providing medical care. Bad decision. There is a large, very personal cost for making that decision. Do the powerful really think that we won't remember, and that the impoverished dying elders, and their families, will praise them for what they've done? Are they that removed? That arrogant? Do they think that they and theirs are safe from harm? That there will be no retribution? Think again.

During the closing days of the Vietnam war, an interesting episode occurred: In September 1972, a man attempted to throw Robert McNamara over the rail of the ferry to Martha's Vineyard. McNamara was one of the few who really designed that war, and had personal culpability for it. The attempt was unsuccessful, and the assailant, who identified himself years later, reported that his rage over the war led to the attempt; he regretted failure. We were more benign in 1972, despite the demonstrations and long hair and all. Now we are not so forgiving.

None of the other main players in that war ever suffered so much as a day of discomfort. Same in Iraq, same in denying health care to Americans. How can we tolerate this kind of corruption? How can we allow the same deeply malignant fools to go on, day after day, killing some of us by what they do, and most of us by what they don't do? This has gone on all of my life.

The powerful need to personally suffer for the pain they cause. Remember what happened to McNamara, and how easy it is to get a can of gas, and then listen to part of an old country song:

God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water, the fire next time.