I was on Facebook when I realized the House had actually passed Trump’s new “version” of non-health care. I got so depressed, I went to Steam and bought Civilization VI. I used to play the game three or four versions ago, so I am pretty sure I can figure out how it works. I had finally realized I cannot live on the horrors of politics. It will drive me insane.
It really is driving me insane anyway, even though I’m not personally using Obama’s health care system. Nor are we eligible for Medicaid. This isn’t going to affect us directly, but it is going to terribly damage other people we know and so many more we don’t know. The thing is, we don’t need to know everyone this will hurt to feel bad for them.
When I read this, Garry was watching a movie with headphones. I didn’t want to ruin his movie experience, so I waited until the movie was over. Then, I told him. I think his jaw literally dropped. He didn’t say anything. I understood. What more is there to say that we haven’t said a million times? It took so long to get health care in this country. I came very close to dying for want of available medical insurance and so have many other people.
Mind you, there are lots of people who did die and of course will die. Because they couldn’t get medication, couldn’t afford surgery, couldn’t go to a doctor. Didn’t have access to antibiotics or blood pressure medication or insulin. Because they had a bad heart valve and no money to fix it. A tumor they couldn’t have removed.
People who have no access to medical insurance die. Dead, buried, gone. It’s not a joke or a political ploy. It’s a fact.
So as this “news” was rolling around what’s left of my mind. I was so angry and upset, I didn’t know what to think or whether I should simply give up thinking at all. Exactly at that point, Steam popped up and told me a game in which I was interested was on sale. Civilization VI, the latest in the Civilization game cycle. I had been thinking about buying a game, but hadn’t been sure what to buy and was wondering if I would have the time to play it if I did buy it.
This horrendous piece of news was the clincher for me. I was so depressed, I bought something that will take me away from all this.
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Categories: #Health, Congress, Government, Mental health, Politics
SERENDIPITY - SEEKING INTELLIGENT LIFE ON EARTH 
Happy gaming, Marilyn. I have hundreds of mindless games stored on my computer, and I think they’ll come in handy once I become disabled if my insurance company decides to stop covering my very expensive medical treatments. At least I’ll have something to look forward to.
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I’m trying to not really think about it. If I spend too much time wondering what this might mean to me, I really will go frothing mad.
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Our President is a murderous prick. Pokemon Go is my current escape–until my pre-existing conditions get me, I’ll pretend that Pikachu is our POTUS.
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It isn’t a law YET. I’m grateful for Medicare.
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I’m glad you have Medicare. 🙂 I’m fortunate that my husband has great insurance through his work, but who knows how things will change if this mess somehow becomes law. I’ve certainly written and called my senators!
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None of us know what will happen. We just hope it won’t be as awful as it seems.
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They got a tax break too, so they will live with themselves just fine. I would like to change jobs one more time, but I am not sure I will be protected due to pre-existing conditions. The Portability of Insurance used to protect people and actually saved me on my most recent move (due to being laid off). However, my out of pocket this year could max at 9450. and I may actually hit that due to a BS way they categorize things. This is a really tough situation and one that was not an issue at previous jobs. If you are sick or old, then you have a problem. If you are both, the Death Panel has sealed your fate.
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If I believed in hell, they should all go there. Otherwise, they should be held to account for this atrocity forever and never get a moment’s peace of mind for the rest of their trivial, pathetic lives. But that’s just a personal opinion. These guys are murderers. They should stand trial.
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They get to keep the protections of Obamacare for themselves. It is nice to be able to exempt yourselves from what you force onto others. There is only justice if there is also eternal damnation.
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Yep. I wish I really BELIEVED they would get eternal damnation. In the meantime, I’d settle for immediate damnation. Like, NOW.
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Good call. I was playing a lot of SimCity after the election.
There’s no point having an emotional reaction to something until it is over and the results are known, meaning I’ve been writing and calling senators. If they vote “Yes” then I’ll be angry. We may not even have hospitals down here — and we will certainly not have as much care available to people (and it’s already pretty limited) — if this thing passes the Senate and is signed into law. We are a very, very, very poor region with many people on Medicaid. The improvements to Medicaid written into the ACA made it possible for our hospital to hire an oncologist and offer REAL maternity services.
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We are considered downright RICH among people our age here, which is why we don’t get any of the perks. Too wealthy, which is pretty funny when I think about it. Otherwise, this is the poor area of the states. Many old people with very limited incomes, mostly social security and not much of that. The only reason they hang on is that they own their houses and don’t have mortgages to pay. Lots of very old cars. Not a lot of medical care, either. We have a modest number of primary care doctors, but as for specialists, you really need to go to Boston or near Boston to get the good ones. The local ones are often pretty pathetic. So yes, it will hit this area like a rock from the heavens and Massachusetts is very worried because without the Federal money … well … this is a tiny state. Most of our income comes from tourists, students (LOTS of students), and medical institutions in Boston. Take any of that away and it gets dicey.
I know there’s a long way to go with this, but I can’t help be very worried. I know a lot of people who will quite likely die without additional services. They are barely hanging on NOW … WITH the services. And all the people in support facilities for older people … without extra money from the feds, where can they go? There’s no support for the mentally ill, the physically broken, AIDS patients.
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I understand there is already an underground network of people sharing drugs. I believe this is illegal. If someone dies of AIDS, for example, the survivors do not throw away the drugs. They pass it on to someone who is taking the same drugs. This is a way of hoping to save someone else’s life who is struggling to pay for HIV meds (or whatever drug). HIV meds here could cost 4 to 5 thousand per month retail. In France or Germany, they cost about 1/10th.
I have talked to my doctor about my various meds if I retire. He promises help to pick the right Part D plan to get the ones I must have. If I can not get them all…oh, well.
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Wow Black market health care. How did we get here?
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We got here out of necessity. When we price life saving drugs beyond our ability to pay and make health coverage unaffordable, people do what they must. There are the elite and the aristocracy who can afford anything, and the working class and Proletariat who must vote them into power.
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What these politicians have done is horrifying and cruel. I know that Republican politicians won’t lift a finger to help anyone, but passing bills with the actual intent of hurting and killing innocent people in their own states is crossing a moral line that I don’t see how you get back from. I also don’t know how they live with themselves.
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Even should this nightmare result in every one of these bastards losing their seat on whatever house they work in, it’s not NEARLY enough. When I said EVIL, i wasn’t kidding. This is the kind of stuff you don’t even expect bad dictators in third world countries to pull off. And they think they are Christians? How is that? I’m NOT a Christian and MY native (though unpracticed) religion would never allow for this.
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Don’t blame you. Virtual reality is an improvement over the real thing if only because we feel in control. Our PM actually congratulated him on the bill being passed. Ithought “How could you?” I know it is just politics but you don’t applaud bad policy.
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Virtual reality is the only one left I can cope with right now. Garry still hasn’t said anything. He isn’t a very chatty guy anyhow, but this has left him too angry to speak at all. I feel damaged.
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All I feel is anger.
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Well, add that to my tears. This really IS tragic, no matter how it works out in the end. That so many people could tear away the lives of living people to save a few bucks … There’s nothing to say, is there.
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Reblogged this on Espiritu en Fuego/A Fiery Spirit and commented:
The Day Healthcare Died in America. Now thousands of Americans will die because they cannot afford to see a doctor or they have a pre-existing condition. Guess now we all must find ways to cope.
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It’s a nice reasoned piece from the Times (thank you NY Times!), though I’m losing any drop remaining of faith in whatever I thought we had as a humane system in this country. To be fair, the world has been shaving away at my youthful belief that I lived in a decent society.
I don’t believe in the U.S. anymore. If I still lived in Israel, I might stay there. Not that they are by any means perfect, but at least they try. We don’t even try. I am not feeling good about my world. Actually, I feel like crying and it isn’t because they are taking away my “stuff.”
They are stealing my hopes and dreams and I don’t know if I will live long enough to see them come back.
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I have no snappy comments for this story.
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me either – health care is a human right.
Leslie
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I feel sad for you, and all those who are very scared right now. I think we have to make it a priority to take the best care of ourselves, eat better, exercise, walk, take vitamins, drink more water, de-stress our lives, prepare to live a more simple life, detach from technology, “under the grid”, and learn to live off land…I believe that is necessary. Everyday I worry what if…..I believe there is a time for all of us, meanwhile, prepare for whatever is coming, I think it is time to “hoard” medications, and first aid supplies, make yourself a 30-60 day emergency kit, with food, water, and other items to make fire, purify the water, and whatever else needed to basically “camp out” and take care of yourself. It is coming.
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It’s a nightmare.
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Maybe the Senate will respond to constituent blowback. Maybe. And, maybe there’ll be payback for some of these tossers in the midterms.
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Even i felt depressed for the same reasons when i heard it on the radio and it definitely does not affect me personally either. But it will affect millions of Americans and that can’t be a good thing for them or the country.
I have hope that as it only just squeezed in because of 2 voters in the Congress that it probably won’t pass as is in the Senate where they only have a 2 seat majority!
Maybe those who can’t or won’t be able to live in America can build themselves a new Civilisation??
Virtual reality beats political reality any day! 😉
love.
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It is a terrible, evil, wicked thing they have done. No matter WHAT follows, that human beings could behave so badly to other humans is beyond my understanding.
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I agree completely.., and just wrote a letter to the two Republican senators from Arizona. I can’t understand that “winning” is so important to the GOP that it’s worth the sacrifice of our citizenry. It IS very depressing, but I have many other things to take care of. In spite of this distraction, my mind keeps wandering back to this horrific issue and ask how, and why, it has happened. Who are these people we’ve elected to government who’s’ main focus seems to be to screw us over?
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I don’t know. How can these people not look at themselves in a mirror and feel like puking. What a miserable set of bastards.
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I may well be biased but i greatly think the love of money is behind it all! 😉 it can explain a lot of strange behaviour.
love.
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The irony was less than an hour after celebrating in the rose garden of the White House Trumpy said Australia has a much better health care system than we do. For once he was right.
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And for which i am truly thankful! 🙂
Did your press make as much of the fact that 44.5 kept our PM waiting 3 hours for their scheduled meeting and then had to cut it short ( despite the VITALLY important things they needed to discuss like Trade,Syria and Terrorism world-wide ) just so he could bask in a little Rep glory??
love.
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So why haven’t we looked into the Australian plan for some ideas for our own? The answer is the goals are different. Australia wants to take care of its people. The GOP are set on undoing anything that a compassionate president may have done for the people.., plus, the “Good Old Boys” in congress just couldn’t swallow this country electing a Black President.., TWICE! I hesitate to play that card as I have way too many really good friends that are white, proving that we can “all get together.” But the truth of the matter is we haven’t come as far as some of us might want to think. Decidedly I and my friends are in a minority, and all I can say is welcome brave beings.., we’ve been here a looonnnggg time.
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For the moment, yeah, we are screwed. I’m hoping this isn’t permanent. But it’s definitely for a while, at least.
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indeed. And now you know why I bury myself in Worlds of Warcraft and Legos and all those things that require a certain amount of time aWAY from the news. Any news.
Proud of ya.
I used to love Civilization, I have two or three of the upgrades, but since I got into online stuff I don’t bother. But it’s a fascinating thing to work through.
Simcity is another that works on eyecandy as well as mind candy.
These days watching the news and the shenanigans in DC is like poking your arm with a sharp stick.
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I used to play SimCity, but haven’t found one that will work on a a Win10 machine, at least not yet. If you know of one, let me know. This is going to whack a big chunk out of my writing time, but I need some hours —
weeks maybe — to live in another universe. This one isn’t working for me
All I feel like doing is crying. I feel so damaged. Betrayed.
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Amazing post!
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Thank you. But a horrible world.
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