Given some of the other diaries tonight on HCR I wish I could give everybody a respite from strategizing and worrying and fishboning and breaking down this issue.
But, see, I can't.
My primary caregiver/unpaid PCA/roomate is very ill suddenly.
Spiked a 101.4 temp when they usually runs 97 or so.
Some systemic infection that has started in their lungs, and settled in a leg.
They've had outpatient IV meds for the last two days. They'll have them for eight more.
Physicians want to admit. My roomate can't afford it. They can just barely manage to pay the 20 percent outpatient co pay....
By using every dime set aside to pay for prescriptions all year.
They take COPD meds, diabetic meds...they aint cheap.
They are also the dog walker in the house. (LexiTheSchnauzer is a teenaged dog hellion, who has just figured out we can't keep up. Sigh)
They do half the cooking, all the shopping most laundry and half the dishes....I do what I can when I can, given my mobility limits.
They are not up for any of that right now.
There's really no one else in the city we know. I'm calling some local phone numbers in the morning....to try and find some respite care that can keep things going for two weeks that I can't do...
Respite care. It ain't just for terminal illness anymore.
And, it is of course, not covered by one of the Big Insurers.
I trust both sides of the current pie fight here. I get that both sides believe they're fighting for reform.
I hope they are. I hope it's a case of reasonable people agreeing to disagree..
It's Hobson's choice now. Kill the Bill and wait because it's not Medicare for All, and the status quo simply continues...people continue to sicken and die for lack of access and/or lack of coverage and Democrats get hammered in November by other Democrats.
Pass it, and a few improvements and good things may happen, but horror stories about insane profits by private health carriers, and people getting screwed by their rules will just take different shapes and bend different requirements...and there will be ten or twelve million that look up and say..."Didn't do squat for me!" because they'll still be uninsured...and Dems get hammered in November from the right.
I just know that if the roommate had no insurance right now...things would be worse, and they're pretty bad now.
They've slammed two Percocet and gone to try and sleep....
They just need a break from the pain. It's excruciating. The roomate screams when they wake up.
This debate is full of pain too.
This is the week we have to take our stand(s). While we're doing that, I think a respite from shooting at each other is doable. How about it?
You believe in this path, I believe in that path, we both work like hell to email and phone for the path we want and by the end of the next couple of weeks we'll know how it turns out.
We don't have to virtually scar each other all the way up to the end do we?
Can we work hard and still get a break from at least that part?