Re: damn liberals

[Guest guest]

> Holy cow. As pretty much a die-hard liberal myself, I nonetheless

> realize (and tell people) that liberals can be just as intolerant as

> conservatives towards those who disagree with them. Being an asshole

> knows no political boundaries!

You got it. As someone who is both queer and Christian, I get it from both

sides. The other Christians are very nasty toward queer people, and the

other queer people are very anti-christian. Now, this is probably because

of the attitude expressed by many so-called christians, but I wish people

would judge me as myself, not as " a christian " or as " a queer person. "

Iris

Iris Gray, Puff, Calli and Munchkin

The man gave a shrug which indicated that, although the world did

indeed have many problems, this was one of them that was not his.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Soul Music)

Personal website: http://victoria.tc.ca/~rainbow/

Toastmasters website: http://victoria.tc.ca/Community/Bb/

[Guest guest]

At 04:04 PM 6/12/2003, you wrote:

>A friend who's quite liberal (Pagan, polyamorous, a couple other things of

>the sort) and is a gun owner bemoans that one major political party in

>this country wants to take away her gun, while the other wants to take

>away her reproductive rights. You just can't win.

Yep, it's a real problem (I'm also a mostly-liberal person with some

conservative views, especially on gun ownership). Those who are in favor

of private gun ownership *and* reproductive freedom (for example) have to

look long and hard to find a candidate they can get behind, but it does

happen... Dean, for instance.

--Parrish

[Guest guest]

--- Doug O'Neal wrote:

>

> The basic issue: (some) people who are extremely

> into an alternative lifestyle look down on folks who

> they feel are too attached to the mainstream. Or

> who merely don't make the same choices they do.

-----Oh yes, I've come across this quite a bit also.

>

> It's also the case that some of these folks are so

> free and open with their behavior that they forget

> to be courteous and to care about the feeilngs of

> others

--------It is it's own kind of snobbism. Especially

in the arts crowd, which loves eccentrics but as long

as they aren't of the baffling sort, are entertainin

gand amusing enough, and affected.

> So yes, I'm the bleeding-heart liberal Pagan who

> eats meat, drinks diet pop, is a skeptical

> scientist, and plays and watches sports!

---Good for you for not letting anyone brow-beat you

into their brand of conformity.

>

Nanne

=====

" Let's go get drunk on light again---it has the power to console. " --

Seurat

[Guest guest]

Parrish S. Knight danced around singing:

>Those who are in favor

>of private gun ownership *and* reproductive freedom (for example) have to

>look long and hard to find a candidate they can get behind, but it does

>happen... Dean, for instance.

I decided to look into Dean as a possible vote, but it looks like I'll be

sticking with the Green party as usual. I won't support a politician that

advocates only having universal health care to seniors/children/able-bodied

NTs and leaves the rest of us out.

There's a " medicare " system for those of us that are severely disabled, but

what about all of the people that aren't recognized as such by the

messed-up system? Also, what about fixing the hellish system those of us

reliant upon medicare have, instead of ignoring us while setting up a good

insurance system for everyone else? What we have doesn't cover a *lot* of

medications, procedures, and most doctors simply refuse to take it, so we

wind up at second-rate hacks that are often far from our homes. When a

candidate stops conveniently overlooking adults with disabilities, *then* I

will cast my vote for them.

Also, most of Dean's site seemed like the usual political whitewashing --

lots of vague talk that looks nice but gives few, if any, specifics. I

can't get behind a candidate whose discussion on every topic is full of

rhetoric or just disagreement with the current state of affairs; that kind

of talk is not only meaningless to me, but insults my intelligence.

DeGraf ~*~ http://www.sonic.net/mustang/moggy

" Everybody ought to think for themselves... You need to extract

yourself from the turmoil of other people's interventions. "

-- Wynne

[Guest guest]

Parrish S. Knight wrote:

> Yep, it's a real problem (I'm also a mostly-liberal person with some

> conservative views, especially on gun ownership). Those who are in

> favor of private gun ownership *and* reproductive freedom (for

> example) have to look long and hard to find a candidate they can get

> behind, but it does happen... Dean, for instance.

To be fair, though, your views on disability that you espoused before

were pretty conservative too. Not many people that it was very liberal

to say that if you became disabled and unable to work, that it was then

your duty to die rather than to take an entitlement.

I will admit that I used to be quite conservative in most ways... I was

a member of my university's College Republicans, and not only that, I

was a delegate to their convention in 1991 (held in that Republican

stronghold of Berkeley, CA... UC Berkeley had the largest CR delegation

of any college in the state, oddly enough). While the old yarn goes

that people become more conservative as they age, the opposite has been

true of me. I am still mostly a libertartian (lower case 'l'), but some

things that the Libertarian party stands for are really too far out

there for me.

[Guest guest]

> I decided to look into Dean as a possible vote, but it looks like I'll be

> sticking with the Green party as usual. I won't support a politician that

> advocates only having universal health care to seniors/children/able-bodied

> NTs and leaves the rest of us out.

If you're talking about presidential candidates, Ralph Nader is so

abysmal around the psych system that I get mad just thinking about him.

He has ties to the psych drug industry and has thus refused, last I

heard, to take a stand on forced drugging, no matter who in the party

tries to talk to him about it. I would have hoped it had changed by

now, but if it has, I haven't heard of it.

If you want more information on that particular thing, it's on the

MindFreedom website somewhere.

, who's only registered Green because she's too inertial to change

her registration to unaffiliated

--

" There's nothing in the middle of the road but a yellow stripe and dead

armadillos. " -Jim Hightower, Texas Agricultural Commissioner

[Guest guest]

> Parrish S. Knight wrote:

>

> > Yep, it's a real problem (I'm also a mostly-liberal person with some

> > conservative views, especially on gun ownership). Those who are in

> > favor of private gun ownership *and* reproductive freedom (for

> > example) have to look long and hard to find a candidate they can get

> > behind, but it does happen... Dean, for instance.

>

> To be fair, though, your views on disability that you espoused before

> were pretty conservative too.  Not many people that it was very liberal

> to say that if you became disabled and unable to work, that it was then

> your duty to die rather than to take an entitlement.

Might want to re-read the archives. I never said it was my duty (or

anyone else's) to die if they were unable to work -- simply that that

was probably what *would* have happened to *me* back when I was having

problems. That's not the same thing.

> I will admit that I used to be quite conservative in most ways... I was

> a member of my university's College Republicans, and not only that, I

> was a delegate to their convention in 1991 (held in that Republican

> stronghold of Berkeley, CA... UC Berkeley had the largest CR delegation

> of any college in the state, oddly enough).  While the old yarn goes

> that people become more conservative as they age, the opposite has been

> true of me.  I am still mostly a libertartian (lower case 'l'), but

> some

> things that the Libertarian party stands for are really too far out

> there for me.

That's pretty much where I am, too -- I'm mostly in agreement with the

Libertarians, except that some of their ideas on fiscal policy are just

too far out. Good example: they favor repeal of child labor laws

because they regard such laws as an infringement on parents' rights to

raise their children as they see fit. Sounds good in principle, but in

practice, it shows a real ignorance of history. Those laws did not

appear out of nowhere for no reason.

--Parrish

[Guest guest]

DeGraf wrote:

> I decided to look into Dean as a possible vote, but it looks like

> I'll be sticking with the Green party as usual. I won't support a

> politician that advocates only having universal health care to

> seniors/children/able-bodied NTs and leaves the rest of us out.

Any time I hear someone start talking about universal health care, I

start thinking about whether I want the people that bring us the long

lines and crappy service at the DMV to start handling health care. The

government has an amazing way of fouling anything it touches. The

spending per student in most public schools is well above what it is at

private schools, yet the education one gets in that overpriced public

school pales by comparison. Certainly, there are problems with the

health care system in the US, but it would be bad news to let the

government take that over entirely.

> There's a " medicare " system for those of us that are severely

> disabled, but what about all of the people that aren't recognized as

> such by the messed-up system?

If they are disabled and are not recognized as such, having free health

care is not going to fix things. They're still going to need money to

pay for a place to live, to have food, and other things like that. The

answer to that is to fix the disability system. If the problem is a

disability system that does not recognize that people are disabled, then

let's fix that, not something else. Never put a bandage on your elbow

for a sore on your knee, as the late great Gene Berg used to say.

> Also, what about fixing the hellish

> system those of us reliant upon medicare have, instead of ignoring us

> while setting up a good insurance system for everyone else? What we

> have doesn't cover a *lot* of medications, procedures, and most

> doctors simply refuse to take it, so we wind up at second-rate hacks

> that are often far from our homes.

Are you referring to Medicaid here, which in California is Medi-Cal? I

thought you were on SSI, and SSI comes with Medicaid. Here in Arizona,

Medicaid is run much like an HMO, and while that certainly has its

negatives, I think the quality of care I get is outstanding. There are

hundreds of primary care doctors from which I may choose, and the one I

have is quite good IMO. I have been to urgent care, the ER, and the

opthamologist under my plan, and I have found it to be outstanding.

Some medications are not covered, for sure, but that's the way private

insurance is going too.

Medicaid programs are administered by the state. If you do not like the

way they are administered, it is up to you to vote out the state people

that set up the plan. These kinds of things should be done at the state

level; I don't trust the federal government to be responsive enough to

the needs of its constituents, not to mention that it lacks the

Constitutional authority to do so.

//

[Guest guest]

Klein danced around singing:

>To be fair, though, your views on disability that you espoused before

>were pretty conservative too. Not many people that it was very liberal

>to say that if you became disabled and unable to work, that it was then

>your duty to die rather than to take an entitlement.

Yes, that was one of the reasons I've been baffled when Parrish said he's a

liberal, too. It might be a matter of location, though -- where I live,

he'd be regarded as " ultraconservative " whereas from what I saw, anyone not

wearing a business suit is a flaming liberal where he lives. *shudder*

>I will admit that I used to be quite conservative in most ways... I was

>a member of my university's College Republicans, and not only that, I

>was a delegate to their convention in 1991 (held in that Republican

>stronghold of Berkeley, CA... UC Berkeley had the largest CR delegation

>of any college in the state, oddly enough).

UCB might have had the largest delegation simply because it has an insanely

large student body. There aren't that many Republicans there, but there's

40,000+ students last I heard, so even 10% of that would be a *lot* of people.

> While the old yarn goes

>that people become more conservative as they age, the opposite has been

>true of me.

The same here. I went into college an extreme conservative, and came out

an extreme liberal.

DeGraf ~*~ http://www.sonic.net/mustang/moggy

" I for one do NOT want to be part of a culture

that thinks it's ok to taunt tease and destroy

those who differ from the majority. " -- K. Yelbis

[Guest guest]

> > Yep, it's a real problem (I'm also a mostly-liberal person with some

> > conservative views, especially on gun ownership). Those who are in

> > favor of private gun ownership *and* reproductive freedom (for

> > example) have to look long and hard to find a candidate they can get

> > behind, but it does happen... Dean, for instance.

> To be fair, though, your views on disability that you espoused before

> were pretty conservative too. Not many people that it was very liberal

> to say that if you became disabled and unable to work, that it was then

> your duty to die rather than to take an entitlement.

Hmm.

I've never been able to figure out what's liberal and what's

conservative. I know that there's a certain kind of pseudo-accepting

person I tend to call " liberal " and really dislike. But I don't think I

could be called a conservative either, and from what I've seen of

moderates I'm not that either.

I have political opinions. They just don't seem to be neatly divided

into a major political party or faction.

--

" I will not dismantle small animals on the kitchen floor. " -The Bad

Kitty List

[Guest guest]

> Any time I hear someone start talking about universal health care, I

> start thinking about whether I want the people that bring us the long

> lines and crappy service at the DMV to start handling health care. The

> government has an amazing way of fouling anything it touches. The

> spending per student in most public schools is well above what it is at

> private schools, yet the education one gets in that overpriced public

> school pales by comparison. Certainly, there are problems with the

> health care system in the US, but it would be bad news to let the

> government take that over entirely.

I live in a country with universal health care. To be fair, it certainly

is not perfect. There are waitlists for *non-essential* services --

emphasis on the non-essential. The problem comes in defining what is and

is not essential. I think that's what trips people up. For some,

lifesaving procedures are the only essential ones. For others, procedures

that are not needed to save lives but that can reduce pain and/or improve

quality of life could be deemed " essential. " The wait list problem is

further compounded by overworked doctors who just don't have time to do

all the procedures their patients want them to do, and by a general

shortage of nurses, especially OR nurses.

However, I would not want to live with an American health care system

(which is held up by many people in my country as an ideal.) I've never

known anyone in this country who has said, " I cannot afford to go to the

doctor, " as many of my American friends have. On the chronic illness

discussion groups I belong to there are always posts from people who say,

" I just lost my job and my medical insurance along with it. I'm sick, but

I don't have any money and I don't have insurance, so I can't go to the

doctor. "

Iris

Iris Gray, Puff, Calli and Munchkin

The man gave a shrug which indicated that, although the world did

indeed have many problems, this was one of them that was not his.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Soul Music)

Personal website: http://victoria.tc.ca/~rainbow/

Toastmasters website: http://victoria.tc.ca/Community/Bb/

[Guest guest]

> However, I would not want to live with an American health care system

> (which is held up by many people in my country as an ideal.) I've never

> known anyone in this country who has said, " I cannot afford to go to the

> doctor, " as many of my American friends have. On the chronic illness

> discussion groups I belong to there are always posts from people who say,

> " I just lost my job and my medical insurance along with it. I'm sick, but

> I don't have any money and I don't have insurance, so I can't go to the

> doctor. "

This just happened to one of my support staff. An agency that had

provided her health insurance fired her, her only job left was her

part-time job with me (which did not have health coverage), and she's

been having physical problems that sound to me as if they're treatable

*now* but if she doesn't do something they could become permanent.

--

" It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, 'Go

away, I'm looking for the truth.' and so it goes away. Puzzling. " -R.

Pirsig

[Guest guest]

DeGraf wrote:

> Yes, that was one of the reasons I've been baffled when Parrish said he's a

> liberal, too. It might be a matter of location, though -- where I live,

> he'd be regarded as " ultraconservative " whereas from what I saw, anyone not

> wearing a business suit is a flaming liberal where he lives.

With me, it helps that I live in a small city in Pennsylvania, as

opposed to, say, Berzerkley or The Peoples Republic of Boulder

(Colorado). Of course, in my work environment (academia), almost no

professors wear suits anymore, fortunately for me because that kind of

clothing gives me Aspie sensory issues.

> The same here. I went into college an extreme conservative, and came out

> an extreme liberal.

Interesting. I had already developed my liberal ideas before I went to

College (at age 17), despite my parents being kind of conservative. I

was, for instance, an extreme pacifist then. At Penn State, I met

people in e.g. the feminist and gay communities, and their ideas made

sense to me, and the rest is pretty much history. I'm not an extreme

pacifist anymore, though I still definitely lean in that direction.

Winston Churchill apparently said " A man who is not liberal at twenty

has no heart; a man who is not conservative at forty has no head. " I'm

certainly not going to get to 'conservative' in the next six years, but

I have moved somewhat in that direction. In a group of Pagans or UU's,

for instance, especially young ones (like the UU young adults

community), I find myself right-of-center a lot. That's a strange

feeling.

Doug

[Guest guest]

Iris M. Gray wrote:

> However, I would not want to live with an American health care system

> (which is held up by many people in my country as an ideal.)

Ironically, many people here hold up Canadian health care as ideal.

Certainly, ours is not ideal... not when there are people that cannot

get health care. However, I do think that the quality of US health care

is very good. Opponents of nationalized health care often cite how many

well-to-do Canadians come to the US for health care, and pay out of

their own pockets instead of get it for free there.

> I've

> never known anyone in this country who has said, " I cannot afford to

> go to the doctor, " as many of my American friends have. On the

> chronic illness discussion groups I belong to there are always posts

> from people who say, " I just lost my job and my medical insurance

> along with it. I'm sick, but I don't have any money and I don't have

> insurance, so I can't go to the doctor. "

Certainly, that is a big problem here, and it should not be that way. I

think that a way to keep the quality of medical care but to cover the

gaps like that would be to offer subsidies for insurance of some sort.

I would much rather have that than have the entire medical system

nationalized. Currently, I have government-funded health care... but

even so, I enjoy the benefits of private health care. I go to a private

doctor, and if I go to the hospital, it is a private hospital, with the

same quality doctors and staff as any other patient there.

Nationalizing all of it would not just bring the people that slip

through the gaps up to the level of care that I get... it would bring

everyone that has health insurance down, and the only people that would

see better care than what they get now would be the minority that

currently don't have any health insurance.

[Guest guest]

Doug wrote:

>...Of course, in my work environment (academia), almost no

>professors wear suits anymore, fortunately for me because that kind of

>clothing gives me Aspie sensory issues.

I was in a university class once that was interestingly

diverse. Because it was in an honors program that was

for the entire College of Arts and Sciences, there were

students from a wider range of departments than usual

in the (English) classes I usually took. Future

scientists and engineers and medical doctors and

mathematicians as well as future unemployed English

majors.

There were four or five not-born-in-the-U.S. students,

also, incuding a young man from the former USSR [this

class happened (I just looked it up) in 1993]. He always

came to class in a business suit. From his POV, wearing

the suit was a sigh of respect for education and the

people (students and professors) involved in the

educational effort. The casual clothes everyone else

wore looked, from his POV, like a sign of disrespect.

I don't go in for " signs " of respect, myself. But it

was interesting to meet someone who was comfortable

being so obviously different (in appearance) from

everyone else (including 98% of the profs) because

his appearance was (for him) an expression of respect.

Jane

[Guest guest]

--- DeGraf wrote:

>

> The same here. I went into college an extreme

> conservative, and came out

> an extreme liberal.

>

--------That's the main purpose of most colleges

anymore, lolol.

Nanne

=====

" Let's go get drunk on light again---it has the power to console. " --

Seurat

[Guest guest]

Jane Meyerding wrote:

> There were four or five not-born-in-the-U.S. students,

> also, incuding a young man from the former USSR [this

> class happened (I just looked it up) in 1993]. He always

> came to class in a business suit. [...] The casual clothes everyone else

> wore looked, from his POV, like a sign of disrespect.

>

> I don't go in for " signs " of respect, myself.

I agree with you: respect (or lack thereof) is not shown by symbols, but

by actions.

There are times for special clothes, like commencement and the academic

gowns. But I certainly teach better in a polo shirt than I would in a

suit, and students are more capable of learning if they're in

comfortable clothes.

If that guy feels better in a suit, good for him; but he was wrong about

the lack of respect thing.

One of my colleagues grew up in Bangladesh and was educated in Germany.

He recently said that the casual dress is one of the things he likes

best about working in America.

Doug

[Guest guest]

At 05:07 PM 6/12/03 -0700, Klein wrote:

>Are you referring to Medicaid here, which in California is Medi-Cal? I

>thought you were on SSI, and SSI comes with Medicaid. Here in Arizona,

>Medicaid is run much like an HMO, and while that certainly has its

>negatives, I think the quality of care I get is outstanding. There are

>hundreds of primary care doctors from which I may choose, and the one I

>have is quite good IMO. I have been to urgent care, the ER, and the

>opthamologist under my plan, and I have found it to be outstanding.

>Some medications are not covered, for sure, but that's the way private

>insurance is going too.

Here in Idaho I can pretty much walk in to any doctor I want and I don't

need a referral but they are working on changing that. (They've been

working on changing it for several years, though, so who knows when they

will actually change it.) There are some limits, of course. I had to call

around and ask plastic surgeons if they took medicaid. I found one who did

and made arrangements for breast reduction surgery but when I got there,

they told me that they'd just changed policies and no longer accepted

medicaid so I don't get my surgery (instead, medicaid is buying me a couple

of orthopedic bras. I'd rather have the reduction, but at least I get

something.)

Of course, being able to walk into any doctor I want is great in theory but

in practice it's something else. There's only one urologist in town and

visiting him convinced me that he's a quack. No other urologists and no

uro-gynecologists or anything else similar. On the bright side, I didn't

have to jump through a bunch of hoops to see the Asperger's specialist two

towns away. I just made an appointment and went.

There are some medications I can only get the generic form of but if there

is a reason why I have to have the name-brand (some people react

differently to name brand and generic forms of the same medication) I can

get an exemption. I take one medication that I'm only supposed to be able

to pick up every 28 days but my doctor has me taking it differently from

the standard so I have an exemption and can pretty much pick up my refills

whenever. I'm not looking forward to the medicaid reforms - they're

apparently trying to turn it more HMO-ish like yours - but I'll worry about

that change when it finally happens. So far, they've been phasing people

into it by forcing people who have more than five regular prescriptions to

sign up. Rumor has it, they're just going to leave it at that, as something

to keep tabs on people with heavy drug use.

Sparrow

[Guest guest]

At 06:23 PM 6/12/03 -0700, Iris M. Gray wrote:

>However, I would not want to live with an American health care system

>(which is held up by many people in my country as an ideal.) I've never

>known anyone in this country who has said, " I cannot afford to go to the

>doctor, " as many of my American friends have. On the chronic illness

>discussion groups I belong to there are always posts from people who say,

> " I just lost my job and my medical insurance along with it. I'm sick, but

>I don't have any money and I don't have insurance, so I can't go to the

>doctor. "

Most Americans I know just go to the doctor anyway. That's what I did

during the couple of years when my benefits were cut off. I had a lot of

health problems hit and ran up over $30,000 worth of medical bills. Then I

got the bills and then I got the collection notices and then I quit getting

any mail about the bills. If they take me to court, they get nothing

because I'm disabled (and they realize that so they aren't very likely to

take me to court because it will just cost them more money.) If they don't

take me to court before the statute of limitations runs out, I no longer

owe them any money.

That's the nice thing about being too poor to go to the doctor - you're too

poor to be sued, too, and the poorhouse system was eradicated a looooong

time ago.

Sparrow

[Guest guest]

At 07:14 PM 6/12/03 -0800, Jane Meyerding wrote:

>There were four or five not-born-in-the-U.S. students,

>also, incuding a young man from the former USSR [this

>class happened (I just looked it up) in 1993]. He always

>came to class in a business suit. From his POV, wearing

>the suit was a sigh of respect for education and the

>people (students and professors) involved in the

>educational effort. The casual clothes everyone else

>wore looked, from his POV, like a sign of disrespect.

I used to go to classes with my mother (I was a quiet and well-behaved

child and it was cheaper than a babysitter) and I remember that there was

this guy named Leonard who always wore bib overalls and a t-shirt to class.

This was a high-level psychology class and one day the professor said,

" Leonard, you are getting close to graduation. Soon you will have to go out

and find a job. It's time you started dressing like a professional. From

now on, I want you to wear a tie to my class. "

The next class session, Leonard showed up in a tie... and bib overalls and

a t-shirt.

Sparrow

[Guest guest]

I have never been liberal or conservative. Both methods of

thinking have always been far too NT for me. In fact, the entire

concept of " politics " has always been far too NT for me. I never

believed in the idea of pre-packaged thought that seems to be required

to be a member of either group. As a result, both groups find me

unacceptale.

I reserve the right to form my views on each " issue " individually.

Some of my views may be extreme, some are moderate. The descriptions of

" left " and " right " just don't apply. My views on things seem to be

perpendicular to the " left-right " axis. I also reserve the right to NOT

have an opinion on an issue that does not affect me directly. This

seems to infuriate people more than anything else.

Personally, I think that the whole liberal-conservative concept is

obsolete, and has outlived its usefulness. I feel the same way about

" political parties " . If such things were abolished, I think that people

would have to think for themselves, instead of always following " party

lines " , and constantly opposing good ideas just because they came from

the " opposition " .

[Guest guest]

>

>

>However, I would not want to live with an American health care system

>(which is held up by many people in my country as an ideal.) I've never

>known anyone in this country who has said, " I cannot afford to go to the

>doctor, " as many of my American friends have. On the chronic illness

>discussion groups I belong to there are always posts from people who say,

> " I just lost my job and my medical insurance along with it. I'm sick, but

>I don't have any money and I don't have insurance, so I can't go to the

>doctor. "

>Iris

>

>

I live in the U.S., and I certainly would not call the the " health

care " system here " ideal " . In fact, the term I use most often is

" barbaric " . It is based entirely on " the ability to pay " . People are

exopected to get health care through their jobs, but in all the time I

was working, I never had a job that paid health benefits. minimum wage

jobs just don't pay for such things. So, I was always SOL.

I am now on disability, and I am supposed to get " Medicare " , but it

is useless. My eysight is going bad, and I can hardly even see the TV,

but I can't afford glasses. My teeth are badly worn from age, but I

can't afford a dentist. medicare considers these things as

" non-essential " and therefore will not pay for them. I fear that the

final years of my life will be spent blind and sucking my meals through

straws; all because I could not " afford " to do anything about it now.

Then, there is the possibility of things like cancer, and the fact that

" early detection " that is harped on so much is not possible if I cannot

afford to get regular check-ups. Such things are also considered

" non-essential " . Add to that, a $500.00 deductable that i cannot

afford, and basically I can't see a doctor under any circumstance.

Much of this I blame on the greedy insurance companies, and the

greedy lawyers that collect from them. These are the same companies and

lawers who have made it fiscally impossible for me to own a car with

their ridiculous mandatory insurance regulations and their outrageous

rates. Then there are the doctors who drive who live in their expensive

houses and drive their BMWs. Obviously, they don't care about anything

beyond their own bank accounts.

Dustrin

[Guest guest]

> Gack, and I thought Medicaid was bad with its " glasses only once every

> two years " rule. (With the rate my eyesight was going downhill, that

> meant being half-blind by the time I could get new glasses at one

> point.)

I'm allowed new lenses any time the doctor says I need them, but new

frames only once every four years. That is part of my disability benefits.

But *eye exams* are not covered by medicare, welfare or disability, with

exceptions only made for children, senior citizens, and --fortunately for

me -- people with diabetes.

Iris

Iris Gray, Puff, Calli and Munchkin

The man gave a shrug which indicated that, although the world did

indeed have many problems, this was one of them that was not his.

-- (Terry Pratchett, Soul Music)

Personal website: http://victoria.tc.ca/~rainbow/

Toastmasters website: http://victoria.tc.ca/Community/Bb/

[Guest guest]

> I am now on disability, and I am supposed to get " Medicare " , but it

> is useless. My eysight is going bad, and I can hardly even see the TV,

> but I can't afford glasses.

<snip>

Gack, and I thought Medicaid was bad with its " glasses only once every

two years " rule. (With the rate my eyesight was going downhill, that

meant being half-blind by the time I could get new glasses at one

point.)

--

" One can search the brain with a microscope and not find the mind, and

can search the stars with a telescope and not find God. " -J. Gustav

White

[Guest guest]

wrote:

> Gack, and I thought Medicaid was bad with its " glasses only once

> every two years " rule. (With the rate my eyesight was going

> downhill, that meant being half-blind by the time I could get new

> glasses at one point.)

That's not Medicaid; that's Medi-Cal. Medicaid in Arizona does not

cover glasses at all, ever.