Dear GOP - the collective you are an Idiot

As you know, flist, worries about health care are a Big Thing for me, especially right now when I'm worried about the bills that will start streaming in for Bemo's treatment. (Why, dear God, did I say to myself at the end of January, "Feb. should be ok money-wise! Finally, I'll be able to relax a month!" And then I went and paid Sensai my back-dues (almost two hundred dollars), and bought some jewelry-making supplies at Etsy because my inventory at the shop was getting low. Gnngh. Bemo's meds cost us $94, and I was relieved that it wasn't worse. And I haven't paid the student loans yet. I am dumb. Anyway. I don't know that this story going viral will do one goddamn thing to help the state of health care in this country, but I'm all for trying anything.

Originally posted by ladyqkat at Dear GOP - the collective you are an Idiot

(Post originally seen in this post by ramblin_phyl. I have been notified that it was originally posted by suricattus in her journal post. The story and words are hers, but I do believe that it needs to go viral and that as many people as possible need to get their stories out there. Only by making a noise about this can we make a change in our society.)

There is a move afoot in the nation -driven by the GOP - to repeal the new health care laws, to protect corporate interests, to defend against fear-mongering (and stupid) cries of "socialism!", and to ensure that people are forced to choose between keeping a roof over their heads or getting necessary health care.

This movement is killing people.

Think I'm overstating the fact?

Ask the friends and family of writer/reviewer Melissa Mia Hall, who died of a heart attack last week because she was so terrified of medical bills, she didn't go see a doctor who could have saved her life.

From another writer friend: One person. Not the only one. That could have been me. Yeah, I have access to insurance -- I live in New York City, which is freelancer-friendly, and have access to freelancer advocacy groups. Through them, I can pay over $400/month ($5,760/year) as a single, healthy woman, so that if I go to the hospital I'm not driven to bankruptcy. But a doctor's appointment - a routine physical - can still cost me several hundred dollars each visit. So unless something's terribly wrong? I won't go.

My husband worked for the government for 30 years. We have government employee (retired) insurance. It is the only thing of value he took away from that job. His pension is pitiful. He still works part time. My writing income has diminished drastically. Our combined income is now less than what it was before T retired fifteen years ago. Inflation has diminished it further. In the last 30 days I have racked up over $8000 in medical bills for tests and the beginning of treatment. Our co-pay is 20% after the deductible. And there is more to come. Our savings are already gone. I have the gold standard of insurance and I still can't pay all the medical bills.

Another friend lost her insurance when her husband lost his job. She couldn't afford medication and ended up bed ridden for three months at the end of over a year of no job and therefore no insurance until he found work again.

It's our responsibility. All of us, together. As a nation.

EtA: Nobody is trying to put insurance companies out of business. They will always be able to offer a better plan for a premium. We simply want to ensure that every citizen - from infant to senior citizen - doesn't have to choose between medical care, and keeping a roof over their heads, or having enough to eat.

We're trying to get this to go viral. Pass it along.

I'm going to post my story as the first comment to this post if anyone would like to read it. If anyone wants to tell their story, please tell it on your own journal and post a link in the comments. Maybe, just maybe, TPTB will listen to the slaves peons who clean their toilets before they have to clean their own.

media extravaganza update: Salt and Community

Watched the second disc of Community and we both continue to love it. I'm sure we're missing a bunch of dialogue because we're not rewatching (at least not right away, I may pick up the DVDs at some point) and stuff goes by fast, but we're both really enjoying the show. It's a well-built thing, too - the characters have more to do, the relationships are beefed up and not just lightly sketched in. There seems to be a generalized internetty dislike of Britta, but I like her just fine, and think that without her some of the balance of the show would really disappear.

I think I've mentioned a bajilion times that they filmed big parts of Salt at my old place of work, because I'm envious that, y'know, I moved out and Angelina Jolie moved in. I had so much fun helping with the filming of National Treasure and The West Wing that I am bitter I missed out on the fun of this longer shoot. At any rate, the movie itself is full of plot holes, both of the smaller "whups" variety and the bigger, "back the truck on through" type, and has a few instances of bad pacing, including some infodumping that's not very well-integrated into the film, but on the whole it's a fun, tension-filled, bad-ass take on the action movie and I enjoyed it a whole bunch.

The bits that were filmed at my old museum are all meant to be the White House, and they must have loved the fact that the hallways of the place are littered with portraits of past President-Generals and random ancestors and patriotic looking plaques and quilts and decorative molding. They used the small staircases behind the library that I used to love running up and down, because you're sort of between floors, and the stairs are little and windy and marble and just really cool - it's funny that their location scout must have felt the same way about them that I did. And frankly, most of the paintings are pretty crappy stuff (we save the good stuff for the actual museum, not the hallways of the larger organization, although there are few gems here and there) but they look just fine blurred out in the background as Angelina Jolie kicks somebody in the face. And the fact that the gory climax of the last big fight comes right outside the children's museum and above a chapel space amused me terribly. It's worth a rental if you like action movies, and I do like the fact that it was written for Tom Cruise but not altered much to fit Angelina.