The Axe Fell. --The woman ,49, U.S.A., is on penicillin for an abcessed tooth, until the infection clears. The only oral surgeon in Florida who accepts Medicaid refuses to pull it until it is cleared. When it is not cleared by the next pull date, the office, an hour's drive from the lady's Florida home, will not refill her prescription. She has no money to take a bus out there just to get a prescription but they will not renew it or change it on the phone. They say that she can't be seen to get more antibiotics for a week, if she can't get there now. She can't, so she goes off antibiotic therapy she's been on over 100 days . By day 2 the abcess swells with pus. By day 6 her system is down. Only then, when the blood, the heart are infected, can she get antibiotics--from a hospital, IVed into her, too late, though, and she dies within a week , or a month, never leaving the hospital. Does the Medicaid dentist's office feel any complicity? No way! They could cite as sound policy the decision not to prescribe antibiotics without seeing a patient face-to-face, although in her case they had a list of all the kinds and doses she'd been on , in an effort to curb what was looking like a run-away infection. While leaving her with none a full week seemed totally unconscienciosable to her, to them it sounded prudent. In general, people are getting too many antibiotics; losing one here and there in the effort to render the drugs more effective for all was a sad but unavoidable consequence. That the losers would be those least able to show spunk and take heroic efforts to save their own lives, because they had no choice in doctors , no second opinions, is just the way it is. You get what you deserve. The axe falls, the funeral is swiftly over and another problem a thorn with no good to its existence gone like a wasp or hornet or line of sugar ants but better, saving $500 or more a month in prescription drugs and the cost to taxpayers of that long future of frequent hospitalizations with their new Early Out program, basically this: make sure the axe falls rather quick wherever you see a place it can nick in that voter-mandated care for the poor. Coolly get them on out the non-revolving door. Pretend infections in the face from teeth are dental issues then proceed to send the patient to the single dentist he's allowed to see who drops the ball the germ succeeds in gaining veracity against all the antibiotics made while those able to prescribe them dribble them out, playing games making sure they don't work by the time they are done and the patient has died and you can't blame any one. |
Mary |
Marina |
Proove me wrong--bet I'm dead by July 1! |
In Florida in May 2003, the legislature voted to shut down the "Medically Needy " Medicaid program which exempted 27,000 Floridians from medicaid rules that insisted on a subpar income to qualify. The program let people recieve incomes of $1000 a month and more and still recieve Medicaid. There was so much public outrage and media attention when it was due to stop, the program was continued in an emergancy meeting of the legislature. One of the points the Republican administration made was that no other state offered this break to people who really made too much money to get Medicaid. This is a convoluted point, because most other states (except one, Texas) allow families to earn a lot more money and still get Medicaid (New Hampshire, Minnesota, Connecticut- up to $36,000 for a family of 3; Florida--under $10,000 for a family of 3.) Thus some ambitious public employee did some homework and found out we were the only state offering a break , without finding out just why (because we disqualified most residents as too wealthy to recieve Medicaid.) The bigger fear it opens up is that people who get organ transplants will lose their anti-rejection drugs--something these patients were promised would never happen. The big big fear that leaves is that after I get a heart transplant, I will have to live on less than $9000 for a family of 3 the next 5 years, til my eldest leaves home, when little Marina I will have to live on $7000 a year. In other words, this drastic poverty that we are not making it on now would never end--with $400 a month left after the electric is paid to pay phone, gas, food for 3, property tax, gasoline, repairs, maintenance,,,,, I looked at the transplant as my way out of this poverty hell. That I could earn a living. But not if no one will cover my daily anti-rejection drugs---- then I can look forward to being this God-awful poor til the day I die. An awful thought. |
Panicky Realization. This poverty is forever! |
I love my little girls so much. Mary calls me oakaasan, Japanese for mother, saying I remind her of an oak..Marina calls me Mama and wherever I am when I hear a little voice say "mama.." I turn. I don't want to die.But here May 13 2003 my left calf and foot is twice as fat as the right. I 'm afraid. Five years ago I started this site with bravery I am losing after 2 years of dense poverty wiping me out. |
Mary and Danielle, April 2003 |
Marina and Mary , Dec 2002 |
Danielle knew what her wedding dress was going to look like when she was 12. Of course it probably changes a lot and she has a lot of time to change it. She went to her first prom in 9th grade, invited by a senior. She buys clothes every two weeks to keep up, playing off her divorced father's desire to be more there for her. Now probably the most popular girl in school. Mary wore the same jeans every day all year long and about 5 different shirts. She can't afford to try make up and reads everywhere she goes. Danielle hates to read. I love them both. They are both sweet, talented girls I am very proud of. Just, different, mostly due to the extreme poverty one is raised in--she HAS to pretend clothes don't mean a thing to her--what else can she do--whine about her lot in life to everyone? |
Awhile back clothes (and parents' income) didn't really matter so much... |
Our Focolare Family Dec 2002 |
I don't know what to do about this inherent irony ongoing here--- write a book? Two lots up is Tampa's main hooker corner. All these American men drive up and down our road all day and late into the night with money to give away. Inside our home are a couple of pretty women--well, in the photo I was 20 and I didn't move here until I was 29 but I looked much the same. My daughter looks the same. No one wants to help us--these same men spout off about Medicaid bums---and because we have high morals, we starve right on this corner full of cars full of men with disposable money who just have to be sure they feel good first ...and don't expect to burn in hell somehow for leaving us here. While President Bush says America will not leave the wounded man by the roadside, we are the good samaritan , about us sending billions in aid to Africa, he leaves us here, on the roadside, women and children too. |
Dirt Poor and Will NOT Prostitute ! and those who slow their cars down and ask if we need money will burn in hell ! |
Mary, August 2002 |
Me, Deanne, age 20 all those years ago |
