Tonya and PQBON's WebLog
This in an interesting article on free preventative health care. Most of it highlights good things. However, I just couldn't belive how horrable this clip from the second page was:
Natavidad Martinez, 51, who used to work as a bookbinder for $7 an hour and never had insurance, has found herself in a bureaucratic nightmare.
In March 2005, Ms. Martinez, a Seton patient, was found to have liver cancer. She was put on Medicaid, applied for federal disability and was put in line for a liver transplant, without which, doctors said, she had six months to two years to live. Through the summer of 2005, she made the hour-and-a-half drive from her home to San Antonio for preparatory tests.
That August, she was awarded disability payments of $561 a month. But because her income surpassed the $535 limit for Medicaid in her circumstances, she said, she was told by the state that her coverage had ended, and the hospital said it could not proceed with a transplant.
"I asked Social Security if they couldn't just reduce my payments by $30 a month," she said, "but they said it doesn't work that way."
In another twist, by federal rules, she will qualify for Medicare two years after the initial finding of disability. She awaits the start of Medicare coverage next March, when she can rejoin the transplant line.
I can't believe in this country in this day in age people would be bumped from a transplant list for insurance reasons. It just doens't make sense to me.
Katie is now 9 months old. I can't believe she's almost a year old, the time has gone way too fast. She's crawling everywhere and getting into everything. She wants to walk so bad. I got her a walker to help her walk around. She loves it but gets so frustrated when she runs into a obstacle and can't figure out how to maneuver around it. Its fun watching her learn and play. She is such a sponge and learning so much.
Katie is going to be tinkerbell for Halloween, even though we have no where to go. I had wanted to take her to Gymboree's Halloween party but they have no more openings. So I guess we're going to stay home and handout candy and let her see all the kids in their costumes.
We were in Illinois last week to visit my family. It had been 6 years since I had been there and it was nice to visit. My Great Aunt and Uncle were kind enough to let us stay with them, which was especially wonderful because their grandaughter lives next door and they are only 8 days apart, Katie is older. Katie had so much fun playing with her Cousin Amelia. They were so cute. One day Katie got upset when Amelia had to go home and she tried to follow her and cried when she was gone. Such a shame they live so far apart.
Even before the issue reaches newsstands Oct. 10, anti-abortion activists have been decrying it. Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, wrote in a commentary that when she saw a Ms. announcement of the project, "the evil practically jumped right off the page."
Ms. executive editor Katherine Spillar said more than 5,000 women have signed the petition so far -- heeding its appeal to declare they are unashamed of the choice they made. The magazine itself had room for only 1,016 names, she said Tuesday, but all of them will be viewable online as Ms. encourages other women to continue adding their signatures.