what do you need. what scares you the most. me? it is health care.

[seabeyond]

the economy is tough. cost of living is up, that really hurts us. pay is stagnant and that hurts, too. college is coming and cost is skyrocketing. investment is nil due to low interests and wallstreet.

all those cause us financial concern.

i saw a thread that obama should pay off debt on mortgages? and have seen a couple other threads addressing nations issue and what govt should do to help 99%'ers. we don't have much debt. our house will be paid off soon. yet, i have felt financially anxious for a while now. i was thinking, what do i need govt to do for me to not be so afraid of the future and i bottom lined it.

health care.

health care scares me the most, as husband and i are getting older. that is the one that i see taking us down. easily. immediately. we are on an HSA healthcare that has so many rules on when it will pay, what it will pay, if it will pay. i don't trust it at all.

healthcare is the one that scares me.

[MineralMan]

1. Healthcare is now the biggest expense in many families.

It is in our household of two self-employed people. I'm out of the equation, now, since I have Medicare, but my wife is still 9 years from that, and her health insurance is very, very expensive. Essential, though, for various reasons.

[OneGrassRoot]

2. I agree.

I haven't had insurance in over a decade, and ended up filing bankruptcy because of a fairly minor medical issue years ago.

Even those who are doing okay such as yourself (with your house being paid off soon and not much debit), a health crisis can wipe every bit of security off the table for you.

Without health, we truly have nothing.

So, to have security that we can have access to healthcare (not access to insurance but to actual healthcare; insurance is more and more of a scam, imho) would be the first step toward social and economic justice.

[seabeyond]

10. "fairly minor medical issue". exactly. it is even the minor things that have me concerned

my youngest son having back pain. i dont want to take him into the doctor. i know they will do all these fuckin tests and then say, meh... take it easy. and cost me 10k. i am weary going to doctor for fuckin anything. and then, getting older, i think what will that cost us.

[OneGrassRoot]

15. Exactly. Just the tests can wipe people out...

and then the treatment isn't even an option.

:shrug:

It's really criminal, in my opinion. Unnecessary and criminal.

[reggie the dog]

19. all those tests end up costing me either nothing

or one euro each year, i had bloodwork done 3 times, 4 doctors visits and 2 chest exrays when i had h1N1 and pnemonia 2 years ago here in France and for medication and all those tests and doctors visits i didnt pay more than 10 euros out of my pocket. the usa can have this if it wants it, it is wealthier per capita than france

[OneGrassRoot]

35. Amazing...

Whenever I hear of others' experiences in other countries, it's nothing short of amazing how anyone would fight AGAINST having your type of system.

Good for you. :)

[reggie the dog]

36. i have only lived here for 8 years

I was from the usa to begin with and for my first 24 years on earth, this past week i woke up choking on my own swollen throat and went to the emergency room, i remembered thinking, shit i dont have any cash or my credit card, oh wait, i am in france..... you show an insurance card but if you forget that you get treated they give you a bill and you can come back with your insurance card to take care of it. you get treated first, with no talk of money, it could be this way in the usa, i have lived under both systems and france is by far the best, sure their is a supposed debt from the insurance program but only since the payments made by business owners were lowered, so they can just pay a bit more again and all will be fine.

[w8liftinglady]

40. I'm a prime example

WITH good health insurance- bills ran up...with co-pays- to where I was selling blood and pawning shit just to put food on the table,and pay for the meds I HAD to have.

It just is wrong..so wrong.

Preventative care,early treatment and access to medication would be SO MUCH cheaper in the long run.Less profitable for some,but much more accessible for most.

I see young diabetics losing toes because they are uninsured and can't go to the doc. It is a crying shame.

[OneGrassRoot]

41. It is a crying shame...

:cry:

:hug:

[Earth_First]

3. Yep.

My number one issue.

I try not to think about it, because I have lost sleep at night thinking about it...

[XanaDUer]

4. Healthcare

me too. :(

[Swede]

5. Health care should not be on that list of concerns.

It's not fair. I live in Canada,and as I age,I worry about health,but not how to pay for healthcare.

[Scuba]

7. The PTB have been telling us to hate your system for 20 years or more....

.... but those of us with any brains are envious.

[seabeyond]

13. when paying for coverage. money out of the pocket. and still be afraid

you are right. it should not be the top of the list.

[Swede]

16. I was at a financial seminar on Thursday.

One of the speakers was pretty good. He was from Florida.and he was trying to make a point when he asked "How much does it cost,just to see a doctor?" There was complete silence from the audience,because we didn't know.

[Scuba]

6. Yep. I'm paying a fortune for something I hope I never need, and expect...

... it will try like hell to fuck me over if I do need it.

22 more months until Medicare for me, couple more years after that for the wife.

[seabeyond]

26. how old to medicare? nt

[Scuba]

33. Sixty-five unless you have some condition (e.g. kidney failure) that makes you eligible. n/t

[seabeyond]

34. i have forever before i get there.

a while anyway, lol. i thought it was about that age. hence my concern with healthcare cause that is where i set. medicare for all.

thanks

[leftstreet]

8. K&R

[lumberjack_jeff]

9. Agree. I have some degree of control over everything else, but not health.

If the SC strikes down the health care law, I'm going to pursue my canadian citizenship.

[seabeyond]

11. " I have some degree of control over everything else"

i think that is the anxiety part of it. excellent point and well said. it is the lack of control. and could be a financial catastrophe.

[lunatica]

12. In the last two years I've struggled with my finances a lot

My mother and I lived together and between her retirement money and my salary we did OK. When she died in January 2010 I was left with only my salary. I've been through a bankruptcy and the first few stages of foreclosure. I was lucky I got a loan modification from my mortgage company (GMAC) but I truly struggle the last two weeks of the month, every month.

My fear is being homeless at my age. I'm 63. I would be an easy target and pretty helpless. I would probably act like I'm batshit crazy just to scare people away. I think I would probably try to hold up a store or a bank so I could get arrested. My chances would be better if I was in prison. I would act crazy there too if I had to.

[seabeyond]

14. ah,

baby....

i am so sorry.

your post, in a very gentle way, put things in a better perspective for me.

there is so much worse out there. i was looking from a different perspective.

yours is a pretty significant fear. i was looking at the world thru my eyes, and my fears, and for a moment didnt see the rest of the world. you brought me back to that.

[lunatica]

23. I truly consider myself lucky to have a good job

It's just that my salary has been stagnant for more than a decade, and the slow creep of rising costs just eats away at it. It doesn't help that the union bargaining for a contract is also stagnant. The last contract ran out two years ago and negotiations seem to go nowhere.

If we do get a new contract the raise will be retroactive so that will help too. If, if, if...

[seabeyond]

24. yes. that is where we are.

at 63 i can easily see how blessed i would feel if i had a job. a job that was not abusing the body. i have been out of job market so long raising kids, i am concerned there. i was running a business, good salary and shy of getting my own business that would have set me up, when i got married. and left cause i had a baby. almost two decades later, i think what? what could i get, what could i do.

when we aquired our debt and established our lifestyle we had at least a third more income. but rising costs, stagnant wage, loss of income thru investment and a couple other things have changed disposable income for us. it is not like it was, whne i established this lifestyle. and not a lot i can downgrade at this time, to better meet what we are bringing in.

i wish you the best. i guess what your story is, is what you think IF it all crashes down. that has been my anxiety, too, with healthcare and health issues. IF i get sick, i tell myself, .... let yself die. get a divorce to not bring hubby down. these kinda thoughts should not be.

[RebelOne]

29. All right, you are 63. If you can hold on

for 2 more years, you will be able to collect Social Security with full benefits and still work at your job. I did that. Fortunately, I was able to save a bit with that extra money. And then I was laid off in 2010 when I was 70. And you won't have to worry about health care because you will have Medicare.

[lunatica]

31. You work and collect Social Security?

That's great! I didn't know you could do that. Can you tell me more?

[RebelOne]

48. Yes, I was working and collecting full Social Security benefits.

And you will only pay taxes on your salary. I started collecting 7 years ago while working a full-time job. I am not working now, but collecting Social Security while working allowed me to sock away a few dollars. So, as I said before, if you can hold on until you are 65, you can collect full benefits and get Medicare.

[DirkGently]

17. Medical expenses are a leading cause of bankruptcy ONLY in America.

[reggie the dog]

18. I live in France now so i dont worry

I pay 54 euros a month for my health insurance when i work and get it free when i am unemployed. the usa could easisly have it so well.

[seabeyond]

20. yup. i understand. and still, here we sit

with this concern, as cost are outrageous and insurance fails

[Juche]

42. Well, not 'easily'

There are so many financial and ideological interests aligned to keep the status quo alive. Our system is a horror story, but it is a very profitable horror story. If our system were run as efficiently as France (which costs 11% of GDP vs. the 17% of GDP here) you would see the income for pharma companies, hospital industries, insurance industries, etc go down by nearly a trillion dollars. Instead of health care costing 2.5 trillion it would only cost 1.5 trillion (and France has an expensive system. Places like the UK and Japan only spend 8% of GDP). They aren't going to take a trillion dollar a year pay cut w/o a fight. In France drugs cost less and doctors make less money (to be fair to doctors though, In France med school is pretty much free and malpractice insurance is dirt cheap unlike here).

There are always going to be 20-30% of the electorate who are too stupid and arrogant to realize how badly we are getting screwed. You can't pass national level political reform in that situation. Even if you do elect politicians, they have been bought and paid for already. Take the ACA Obama passed. It was a good first step, but everything that would've cut the power, profits and influence of powerful interests was taken out. No public option, no Rx negotiations, no medicare buy in, a mandate to buy private insurance, expansions on Rx patents, etc.

I am scared to death about the issue. I'm in my early 30s and still fairly healthy. But as I age, I won't be so healthy. And people are trying to destroy medicare and medicaid as health care costs continue to skyrocket. I don't even know if I could make it to 65 in good health with my genetics. Let alone 70+ like some people are trying to make medicares new age. Plus lots of politicians are trying to totally dismantle the system.

To me the only real hope is state level reform. Vermont passed massive reforms recently, and other states like Montana and PA are looking into reforming their state level systems too (single payer, heavily regulated private insurance, etc). Hopefully this may create a larger and larger movement like it did in Canada, where Provence level reform eventually became national reform.

I was reading a book called 'healing america' about an author who travels to see health care systems all over the world. He visited f\France among other things. He said in France (where you have private insurance companies who pay the bills, not a single payer system) the insurance company is mandated to pay a bill within 3 days of it being delivered, and they must pay every bill given by a medical professional. Not so in the US. Here they find endless ways to deny, delay and avoid paying bills.

It sucks. But what can we do? Politics on the national level is a fraud on this issue. The real reform will have to be state level.

[SheilaT]

21. For me personally it's that my retirement savings could be

wiped out.

I am extraordinarily healthy and I have very good health-care coverage through my job at a hospital. I'm less than two years away from Medicare, so I honestly don't worry in that department. And I don't personally (please note the emphasis on "personally")don't spend any energy thinking that something terrible could happen.

But I do have substantial savings for retirement. I am on track to collect just about the median payout for Social Security when I plan to start collecting in about three more years. I plan to work until age 70, and then will need to dip into the savings to replace my paycheck. If that money goes away, I'm not sure what I'll do. I might try to persuade some other ladies my age that I know to consider a group living arrangement so we can all manage financially.

[seabeyond]

25. i see options there, like you do

my problem is hubby has much higher living expectation than i. i can reduce to nothing and be perfectly happy. but i could see doing what you are suggesting... a group living. i dont see that as a bad thing.

thanks for your story, and i am glad that you haev the security in health insurance.

[SheilaT]

37. Yeah, I'm extremely fortunate and I know it.

I'm divorced, as of about three years ago, and I did walk away with a nest egg that makes all the difference in the world.

I wound up working at the hospital because I was desperate for a job, any job, and someone said, "Oh try the local hospital. They're always hiring and you don't have to be a nurse to get on." So I got a job in outpatient registration (meaning if you come to us for an x-ray or blood work or stuff like that you see us first)and the pay is semi-adequate, but comes with excellent health care. It helps that I only have to cover myself and undoubtedly helps even more that I don't get sick. So far I've gotten eyes examined and new contact lenses twice, and two years ago tripped over my own feet and sustained a non-displaced hairline fracture of my right arm, just below the elbow, but I was back at work two weeks later.

I'm still doing headstands at my age.

It's especially because of working at the hospital that I am more and more outraged at our current health care system. I'm healthy. Lucky me. Others are not so fortunate. No one should go without health care, especially the preventative stuff. No one.

[jwirr]

22. I'm with you. Losing health care for myself and my children, grandchildren

and great grandchildren. That and actually losing this battle to the corporations.

[TBF]

27. If I had to pick one thing (other than revolution) that could make a positive change in

this country it would be universal health care (single payer). After that I would nationalize the financial and energy sectors, and take the $$$ out of elections.

[seabeyond]

28. ya. this is a personal need, agree

though i do think it is top for many. but yes, ... to revamp and have new lines again is very important. regulations and prosecution. for economy, that is one of my top

[PassingFair]

32. Yep. We could fill up those empty storefronts almost immediately.

Healthcare costs forced me into the corporate world
in 2003, because we couldn't cover the premiums.

So many small and family businesses could start up,
grow and prosper again if we had the health care
beast under control in this country.

[WinkyDink]

30. Obama completely ruined the health-care dream. At least HRC and Bill tabled it when it was headed

South (i.e., in the same Insurance Companies Bounty way).

[Juche]

45. It is better than nothing

The real fear with health reform is that all the consumer protections will be stripped but the mandate will become stronger. I don't know if that will happen. But this is plutocratic America after all, so who knows.

If Obamas health reform is a first step to further reforms (more consumer regulations, tighter restrictions on health insurance companies, adding in a public option tied to medicare, a medicare or medicaid buy in, Rx negotiations, VA style management) it will be even better. Evenso, I don't think our health system will ever be as efficient or humane as what you see in every other wealthy country.

[Hydra]

38. I would worry about health care

But like Lunatica further up, I'm left to worry more about food or housing first.

Do I starve with a roof over my head, or do I try to make it on the streets?

I really hope I never find out which answer I'd pick.

[seabeyond]

39. i hear ya.

i hope you never find out either

[Shagbark Hickory]

43. Having enough money to last me until I die nt

[raccoon]

44. Same here, healthcare. Even someone with good health insurance (and mine isn't,

it's an individual policy with a huge deductible)can be hit with astronomical
health care costs that could wipe them out financially.

[bvar22]

46. Health Care is the only item beyond our ability to control.

In 2006, we cashed out, sold everything, paid off all debts, moved to the Woods, and started producing our own food.
We have an on property source of clean water, and can supplement with Wild Game if necessary.

We really, REALLY believed that the Democratic Party was going to do something (expand Medicare eligibility) besides Mandating us into the greedy clutches of the For Profit Health Insurance Industry when we made our decision in 2006,
or we would have left the country.

We are committed here now.
Luckily, we are both healthy & strong so far,
but a Health Emergency would be a catastrophe.
Our current Health Insurance Policy is a .357 in the mouth if the pain gets too bad.


Solidarity99!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[seabeyond]

47. exactly

btw... surprise of all surprise, it sounds like my hubby is looking to do wht yawl did, when he can retire. we need to get a kid out of highschool (8th grade now), but after that, he is look at land with water source.

i am surprised that he (i thought he social person) would want to hermitize in that manner. me, easy enough. but he seems serious.

[bvar22]

52. It is not for everyone.

The isolation can be a problem,
though not as bad as it once was.
Sat TV, XM radio, and the InterNet makes it easy to feel connected,
but can be expensive luxuries when down to necessities.
Some outside contact IS a necessity.

Luckily, my wife & I are both introverts with good boundaries,
but ANY relationship will be tested with 24/7/365 isolation.




We wanted to relocate to the Pacific NorthWest (Portland area), but couldn't afford the Buy In or Cost of Living.
After a lot of research, we chose West Central Arkansas (Ouachita Mtns) for a lot of reasons.

Inexpensive Unspoiled Property
Clean Spring Water
Long Growing Season
Mild Winter (Wood Stove heat, plenty of available hardwood)
LOW Property taxes
Extensive National Forest & Wilderness

If you look here, a Spring, or Spring Fed Well should be #1 on the priority list.
While they are common here, they are not everywhere.
Even during the Severe Drought this Summer, we had plenty of clean, cool water.
Some of our neighbors were not so fortunate.
We couldn't survive without the Spring.

So far, this has been very good for us.
It is BEAUTIFUL here, and we love what we are doing,
even the hard parts,
but the health care thing is scary.
We can deal with everything else,
but THAT is beyond our control.

[seabeyond]

53. THAT is beyond our control.

as a person stated above, and i agree, that is the issue. i recognize the other hardships, but i can deal with those. this one is an unknown. and there is no .... insurance, ok, ensurance.

i have checked all the western states. i like the west, gonna stay in the west. hubby looking at northen NM, or colo. i told him concerned about water sources in these two states. i am likeing montana, wy and oregon.but he is itchy cause a bet far from his texas. though he denies it, it is pulling teeth to get a texan out of texas. he says we will have to go, though, for my mental health. i was sooo surprised he recognized that all on his own, lol.

has to have a close enough, bigger town for medical purposes to. he chose one place, but town wasnt big enough.

[kctim]

49. What scares me the most?

The increasing lose of our individual rights and the resulting country my children will live in.

[seabeyond]

51. for a decade now, that was mine.

lol. now that i am getting older, medical cost worse, insurance worse, it has shifted.

[barbiegeek]

50. I'm so worried it pushes me to the edge of tears & depression