2008 Day 91
dear blog,
today, i have seen the joy of Medicare Part D first hand. Or perhaps its second hand, as its my mother who is really experiencing it. As readers may know, my mother spent two and a half days in the hospital, in which time she got some new medicines, in addition to her already heroic intake of prescriptions. When my mother went to get her medicine today, her pharmacist had a print-out waiting for her. It's march 31st, and my mother is only hundreds of dollars away from the Part D cap.
Allow me to really explain what this means. Thanks to Bush's Medicare Part D, there is now a cap on how much insurance companies (any and all) will pay on prescription medicine every year. You're probably thinking, "If there's a cap it must be really high." Nope. The cap is less than $3000.
Think about this. By the end of the third month of the year, my mom has already reached the cap. She has nine months to go. Even if we assume she will need less medicine (because, hey, older people are known for going on less and less meds), we could safely extrapolate a cost of $2000 for every three months of the rest of the year. That means, assuming a low end for cost, my mom is expected to pay, out of a fixed income, $6,000 for medicine she needs to live out of her own pocket.
My mom is a fairly healthy and energetic person. The kinds of medicine she is on are what keep her that way. They are treatments for RLS, liver problems, stomach problems, Reynolds Disease, and various other weird things. Because my mom still feels pretty good, she does have a part time job. But, let me assure you, the few hours she works a week in no way will cover her prescription costs over the next nine months.
The fact that my mom, who has worked and payed taxes all her life, at 72 years of age cannot get the medicine she needs to live is at the very least wrong. I would actually say that it is immoral.
today, i have seen the joy of Medicare Part D first hand. Or perhaps its second hand, as its my mother who is really experiencing it. As readers may know, my mother spent two and a half days in the hospital, in which time she got some new medicines, in addition to her already heroic intake of prescriptions. When my mother went to get her medicine today, her pharmacist had a print-out waiting for her. It's march 31st, and my mother is only hundreds of dollars away from the Part D cap.
Allow me to really explain what this means. Thanks to Bush's Medicare Part D, there is now a cap on how much insurance companies (any and all) will pay on prescription medicine every year. You're probably thinking, "If there's a cap it must be really high." Nope. The cap is less than $3000.
Think about this. By the end of the third month of the year, my mom has already reached the cap. She has nine months to go. Even if we assume she will need less medicine (because, hey, older people are known for going on less and less meds), we could safely extrapolate a cost of $2000 for every three months of the rest of the year. That means, assuming a low end for cost, my mom is expected to pay, out of a fixed income, $6,000 for medicine she needs to live out of her own pocket.
My mom is a fairly healthy and energetic person. The kinds of medicine she is on are what keep her that way. They are treatments for RLS, liver problems, stomach problems, Reynolds Disease, and various other weird things. Because my mom still feels pretty good, she does have a part time job. But, let me assure you, the few hours she works a week in no way will cover her prescription costs over the next nine months.
The fact that my mom, who has worked and payed taxes all her life, at 72 years of age cannot get the medicine she needs to live is at the very least wrong. I would actually say that it is immoral.