Guest guest Posted February 21, 2002 Report Share Posted February 21, 2002 Hi all, Older members of the list will remember Bbbbbbeeeeecky. She has MSA. Last year her husband/caregiver was killed by a drunk driver. I was searching this evening and ran across an old email from her daughter Jenyfer with a phone number and called Jenyfer. Becky is doing well presently. She now has a live-in caregiver who gets her out of the house more. Becky is no longer able to talk as Medicare cut her off speech therapy, but is getting more social contact, so hopefully that will help. As a group we need to start pressuring our Congress. If they are cutting our research funds, in the name of " saving " the life of a blastocyst, they need to save " quality of life " in living patients. When speech goes, so does swallowing capability. By not allowing speech therapy, they are drowning patients in their own saliva. Take care, Bill Werre Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 22, 2002 Report Share Posted February 22, 2002 Cindy, The trouble is that the government shifted responsibility to the states and every state is cutting different areas. Some states like Virginia used the windfall a few years ago to cut the state donation to Medicare and give a tax break to owners of cars - however the BIG break was only to owners of really expensive cars - if your car was worth $1000 you get a tax break of $45 if your car was worth $20,000 or more, you got a break of $900. Now Virginia has no money for Medicare, mental health, or even to repair the roads. So they (as well as California) have cut PT and ST by putting greater pressure on the therapists to prove there is improvement in speech. This is not true in all states as some states kept their taxes in place until they could see what was happening. We got rid of the governor who did this, but he will just blame new tax increases on the new governor and people will listen to him. The biggest shame is that those of us who studied things like " Problems of Democracy " back in the 50's or before and have been through these political cycles before, still vote for these people. Look at the political cartoons, Bush's policies and Reagan's are identical and cartoonists know it. You holler loud about " family values " and saving the lives of blastocysts and you cut funding of medical programs, medical health programs or children's programs - THEN you build 90 billion dollar missile defense systems to " save lives " . It doesn't matter that you are dropping million dollar bombs (every day) to kill terrorists. But let's look at it - I agree we need to kill terrorists and that you may have to kill some good to kill the bad - BUT isn't that the same as stem cell research? In stem cell research we don't even kill living people, we kill only the cells that would become the afterbirth. The cells that would become people go into the brains of sick people and help them live. Sorry that is NOT consistent thinking to me. ) I tend to get carried away and must rewrite letters several times cutting out stuff all the time. BUT here are the major issues: * Ask what is the difference between killing people with bombs and using the cells which actually would make people out of blastocysts to live and cure sick people. * Ask if holding back money from speech/physical therapy for movement disorder patients is not like slowly executing the people by causing swallowing and breathing problems. * Ask if holding back money from mental health programs could be causing many of our drug and psychotic related killings. It does seem to me that the Reagan's are now supporting stem cell research since became a caregiver (and she has the money to afford it). My Christ taught us to convert people by our loving example. Let's not call dropping cluster bombs a loving example. Taking care of our own people and finding cures for sick people in the whole world is a loving example. Personally, I feel that terrorists are psychotic's. But I'm not as smart as politicians. Feel free to disagree with me (I've been wrong once or twice in my lifetime ) unlike politicians who are always right ) Please have a reasonable argument against my reasoning, however if you disagree with mine. Note, I do NOT accept Old Testament arguments from Christians but will accept them from Jews ) Christian's need to convince me with Christ's words. I am not saying that any of you are wrong, this is MY belief and I AM a Christian (since birth which I confirmed about 1950 after taking six years of Bible study). I think I am still entitled to believe what I want in the USA, even after September 11th. And I believe that a budget with far more dollars for killing than saving (in spite of the flag wrapping it) is atrocious. PT and ST save life in movement disorder patients. Take care, Bill Werre ----------------------------------------------- > Bill, > > Do we have specific statistics about who is cut off from Medicare and other > government funded programs when they are in such dire need? (So much goes > through this list that it is hard for me to keep up and get it to stick in my > brain.) I'm all for keeping my congresspeople informed and working in our > best interests, but I am fuzzy on the details of various programs and what is > being cut. If anyone has any sample letters in the works that they can share > with the group that would be helpful. > > Thanks, > Cindy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 22, 2002 Report Share Posted February 22, 2002 Cindy, The trouble is that the government shifted responsibility to the states and every state is cutting different areas. Some states like Virginia used the windfall a few years ago to cut the state donation to Medicare and give a tax break to owners of cars - however the BIG break was only to owners of really expensive cars - if your car was worth $1000 you get a tax break of $45 if your car was worth $20,000 or more, you got a break of $900. Now Virginia has no money for Medicare, mental health, or even to repair the roads. So they (as well as California) have cut PT and ST by putting greater pressure on the therapists to prove there is improvement in speech. This is not true in all states as some states kept their taxes in place until they could see what was happening. We got rid of the governor who did this, but he will just blame new tax increases on the new governor and people will listen to him. The biggest shame is that those of us who studied things like " Problems of Democracy " back in the 50's or before and have been through these political cycles before, still vote for these people. Look at the political cartoons, Bush's policies and Reagan's are identical and cartoonists know it. You holler loud about " family values " and saving the lives of blastocysts and you cut funding of medical programs, medical health programs or children's programs - THEN you build 90 billion dollar missile defense systems to " save lives " . It doesn't matter that you are dropping million dollar bombs (every day) to kill terrorists. But let's look at it - I agree we need to kill terrorists and that you may have to kill some good to kill the bad - BUT isn't that the same as stem cell research? In stem cell research we don't even kill living people, we kill only the cells that would become the afterbirth. The cells that would become people go into the brains of sick people and help them live. Sorry that is NOT consistent thinking to me. ) I tend to get carried away and must rewrite letters several times cutting out stuff all the time. BUT here are the major issues: * Ask what is the difference between killing people with bombs and using the cells which actually would make people out of blastocysts to live and cure sick people. * Ask if holding back money from speech/physical therapy for movement disorder patients is not like slowly executing the people by causing swallowing and breathing problems. * Ask if holding back money from mental health programs could be causing many of our drug and psychotic related killings. It does seem to me that the Reagan's are now supporting stem cell research since became a caregiver (and she has the money to afford it). My Christ taught us to convert people by our loving example. Let's not call dropping cluster bombs a loving example. Taking care of our own people and finding cures for sick people in the whole world is a loving example. Personally, I feel that terrorists are psychotic's. But I'm not as smart as politicians. Feel free to disagree with me (I've been wrong once or twice in my lifetime ) unlike politicians who are always right ) Please have a reasonable argument against my reasoning, however if you disagree with mine. Note, I do NOT accept Old Testament arguments from Christians but will accept them from Jews ) Christian's need to convince me with Christ's words. I am not saying that any of you are wrong, this is MY belief and I AM a Christian (since birth which I confirmed about 1950 after taking six years of Bible study). I think I am still entitled to believe what I want in the USA, even after September 11th. And I believe that a budget with far more dollars for killing than saving (in spite of the flag wrapping it) is atrocious. PT and ST save life in movement disorder patients. Take care, Bill Werre ----------------------------------------------- > Bill, > > Do we have specific statistics about who is cut off from Medicare and other > government funded programs when they are in such dire need? (So much goes > through this list that it is hard for me to keep up and get it to stick in my > brain.) I'm all for keeping my congresspeople informed and working in our > best interests, but I am fuzzy on the details of various programs and what is > being cut. If anyone has any sample letters in the works that they can share > with the group that would be helpful. > > Thanks, > Cindy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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