My families' health insurance is gone.
With a whimper, not a bang. It just takes lesser place on the budget than keeping the lights on. We got to the point where we were paying late every month for a lousy policy. For a couple of months Aetna gave us a call to remind us of a late status, but then no call last month and that was right after they announced they'd be cutting out some customers this year to make their profits fatter. Not that they were giving us anything for our money.
It's a protection racket they're running. We can't afford it anymore. I don't think they'd bother to hire someone to break my kneecaps with a bat, so that's good.
So, why are we the only country in the developed world without free to citizens health care? I forget...
I'm 56 years old and already been through a bankruptcy so i'm scrambling here to find some light in this tunnel. I am a jack of all trades, and an educated one. Brown grad, class of 1975. I've been laid off three times in the last ten years by Sprint, Lucent, and BevMo (where i worked like a mule and my back got so bad i was in terrible pain. they fired me "without cause" but hey, it's ok, they couldn't use me to move pallets of cheap wine anymore so...)
So i had a fat 401k post Lucent but that went for COBRA payments and is a memory by now, 8 years later. BevMo provided a mediocre plan, but then it was COBRA again for the last couple of years. For the last year it was AARP/Aetna for a truly poor plan that helped us to the brink of insolvency again.
Now the Senate thinks it's a good idea to legislate a mandate to buy this utter shite that the health care industry provides??? Without a public option this is a cruel joke.
I'm not laughing now.
Where is the CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN?
It may take a series of grass roots takeovers before the scum that has collected in public service gets the picture. Obama is not Bush. We are grateful for that. But we are hugely disappointed at this point.
AND GEE IT WOULD BE NICE TO HAVE BACK THE MONEY AND HOURS WE SPENT TO GET THE DEMS THEIR NICE MAJORITY WHICH THEY APPARENTLY HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO USE. I COULD INVEST IN THE HEALTH CARE SECTOR IN THE STOCK MARKET. THEY'RE GETTING A NICE BUMP OUT OF THIS.