Dear POTUS and Mrs. Obama,
May you find later in life that you have saved enough money - cold, hard cash - and purchased long-term care insurance to provide for yourselves in your graying years. Money is what will see you through actually. The only thing the long-term care insurance will do is relieve your partner of additional burdens, possibly physically and hopefully monetarily.
The cold hard cash will come in handy when MediCare refuses to allow your physician to prescribe the anti-depressants and Alzheimer's medication you need should you be diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. You see, MediCare will not cover a regular physician to prescribe the anti-depressant, which you will desire when you realize you can no longer remember things and may want to kill yourself, prematurely of course. Part of why you can no longer remember things is because MediCare won't let your physician prescribe the Aricept to slow the progression of Alzheimer's Disease without the consent, referral, and diagnosis from the neurologist who originally diagnosed it six months prior. Oh, and by the way, in that prior six months, you will probably have already been evaluated by a psychiatrist, a neurologist, an internist, and neurosurgeon. All of whom will mutually decide you do indeed have Alzheimer's Disease. All of whom will agree that depression is a major part of Stage V Alzheimer's Disease. All of whom would love to prescribe the medications, but are forbidden to by MediCare.
You see, once that diagnosis is made, you will have to follow-up with the internist. The internist will spend hours with you taking care of your entire being. He is like you, POTUS. In charge. However, his hands are tied in bureaucratic red-tape when it comes to prescribing the proper medication. Similar to your situation with Congress. And so, you will ask that internist for a referral to a psychiatrist for yet another evaluation so that psychiatrist can dispense the anti-depressant. It will take six weeks to receive that referral. Then you, or Mrs. Obama, will be able to call that referral and make an appointment. At that time, you may wait up to six more weeks to be seen by the psychiatrist. Now we are at twelve weeks. An anti-depressant takes approximately four weeks to kick-in. Hopefully, you will not have been in such a stupor by week twleve, you won't off yourself before the long anticipated meeting with the psychiatrist. Hopefully, you will hang in there.
Now the odd part of all of this MediCare sham is that the internist and neurologist are the doctors who will manage the day-to-day care of the Alzheimer's patient. So why then, I ask you, should a psychiatrist dispense the medication? A psychiatrist who generally does not deal with Alzheimer's patients. A psychiatrist who will have no idea whether or not the medication interferes with your blood pressure medication or your heart medication. Or what the correct dosage will be for you because the psychiatrist is a one time meeting. That doesn't really matter in the end, POTUS, because in all honesty, the dispair you will feel as your brain withers away, and the dispair your loved ones will feel while watching you, is what matters. This is where cold hard cash comes in.
If you have saved enough cash, (hold off on Wall Street investments for awhile, sir) you will be able to pay any doctor cash for the visit and the pharmacy cash for the medication. This comes in handy when seeing the doctors. POTUS and Mrs. Obama, you need to realize that if you dropped your MediCare insurance, your internist could write that prescription and get you started on the anti-depressant and Aricept - YESTERDAY. Not twelve weeks from now. If you have cash, and not crappy MediCare with all of its limitations, doctors will treat you - and treat you well. They will jump on that gravy train and take care of the depression that comes with Alzheimer's Disease. Oh, and at this point you may want to skip the Aricept. It is too late anyway.
So the long and short of it is, your new health plan sucks. MediCare sucks. And if you want to make things better, follow the lead of Canada. Have REAL socialized medicine. If a citizen can and wants to purchase separate insurance, let them. But every Canadian I know that lives in our great nation still flies back to Canada for all medical needs. My Canadian friends are shocked and appalled that Americans have such disdain for the Canadian healthcare system when in fact, our ideas really blow. They aren't working. Meanwhile, my Canadian friend's parents who are suffering from Alzheimer's, dementia, and other memory related diseases are not waiting twelve weeks for an appointment. Nor are they complaining about less than lackluster care. This poor perception of socialized health-care in Canada seems more like uneducated opinions that Americans have built up and a myth perpetuated by society.
Unfortunately, it sounds like I am bashing MediCare. I do not mean to. I am thankful that the graying generation has some kind of coverage. However, I am seeing first-hand how devastating MediCare really is and how and why seniors have shoddy care.
On a side note, seniors need eyeglasses and dentures. Two expenses that most senior citizens cannot cover. Funny how MediCare does not cover the two basic necessities seniors need. Save your money. You will need it.
I voted for you once and will probably do so again. Please revisit your thoughts on health-care, if not for the nation, at the very least for the generation over 60 years old. Your ideas are bogus. Or they may have been butchered by Congress. Either way, MediCare stinks. Socialized medicine, even for seniors only, is the way to keep people healthy. And off suicide watches.
Thanks so much.
