The plans of a retiree.

(past winter-water submerged garden)

When you retire, your calendar changes.

You no longer have five days on, two off.

Your calendar is now filled with frequent doctor'a visits, dates when your social security check is deposited, and the chores associated with your present weather patterns. 

Last winter, this garden plot was was under water for months. Hence the many activities that followed in the spring, when everything was dug up, removed, cut and disposed of, to make room for planter boxes that are elevated and moved to higher ground. Our calendar from that point on indicated these phenomena and how everything else in our lives had to subjugate to that!

What was divided between work and fun, now is divided between fun and dread.

Yes, five days, or five weeks of fun, against a month in crutches, a week on cereal and water before you have enough money to go to the grocery store to pick up coffee and milk again; the dread of something braking in your body; something else in your house that needs fixing. 

(We lived in Southern Calif. most of our adult lives. Now, we realize that maintaining a house is quite different when the weather is so harsh!)

  

I hear the price of meat will skyrocket because of the drought in the Midwest. The price of fish is already up because there are dead zones that are now off limits to fishing. And, in a situation like our port, too small to get automatic dredging to maintain the dwindling fishing industry, we are looking at many folks losing their livelihood, in a town where there are few jobs already.

Those folks who travel and talk about the next journey between journeys are rare birds.

Most retirees I know journey to the next town, to stock up on essentials. Their long-distance travels are necessary evils, like visits to hospitals, specialists.

We usually take a trip down to California during our wet winter or spring. We manage to get ourselves organized enough to close our home, and travel down to visit our son and family for a week or so. We count that week as our yearly vacation; and if everything works out, they can come up and visit us in the summer when our weather is better than their weather.

Long term planning?

Sure!

To continue using our limbs and all our organs.

To continue to enjoy eating the things we love before something interferes with our digestion.

To keep our vision and our acuity so we can continue to drive and get ourselves around.

And, to see the world......

Medicare on my Mind.

No matter what work you did, even if you worked for yourself, you probably contributed to Medicare, knowing that in your senior years, when you needed health care the most, the program would guarantee that major hospitalization and surgery bills would be paid off.  You couldn't anticipate how sick or feeble you'd become after a certain age, and even if you owned the farm, and the implements to operate it, you could never know how your health might bankrupt the family business.

Medicare has been around for a long time because people have seen its usefulness and are willing to maintain it. 
The program, however, is becoming costly.
All of our medical expenses are becoming out of control.

Medicare doesn't even cover all the expenses seniors face when their health is poor.
Most seniors purchase additional insurance, Medigap, to cover anything that Medicare doesn't cover.

So, how much of seniors' income is spent on medical expenses?
A big wallop!

Premiums for Medigap and Medicare Part B and D (these are newer parts added in the last few years to expand the coverage of the original Medicare that covered only major medical) and dental coverage, can be as much as half of the Social Security Benefit payments seniors receive.

In other words, medical costs are out of control. And yet, we are still fighting each other on how to deliver medical coverage to people without bankrupting them.

You say we can't afford these benefits?
I say, we can't afford not having these benefits.
We need to figure a way to contain costs and to insure everybody, so that in the richest country in the world people don't die of diseases and poor care.  Our infant mortality is one of the poorest among developed countries. 

How did we let that happen?
Now, we're proposing cutting benefits, or curtailing them for seniors.
Our senior mortality will be the poorest in the world.
Not really what we want is it?

An open letter to Congress from an Oregon Grandmother.

Dear Congressmen:

You are in Washington to speak for us. We want you to know that every word you speak against universal health care, every stand you take to change the conversation, to muddle the waters, to create theater, may be the difference between living and dying for many of us.

Life is already difficult for many seniors. I retired on the beautiful Southern Oregon Coast where there are no pharmacies, and we all must travel by car 28 miles to refill our prescriptions. During our wet, windy season, roads are often icy and interrupted by downed power lines and debris. In the last six years, two of our doctors retired or moved, and we had to go farther to find adequate care.

There are many towns without doctors, hospitals or pharmacies. This situation is difficult enough. When you add the cost of these services, and the cost of insurance, many people in rural and isolated areas are being ignored. The cost of doing nothing is a death sentence for many of us who cannot afford to move, who cannot afford the price of medicine, who cannot afford annual check-ups, who cannot afford hospitalization.

I'm beginning to tire of all the talk in Washington. An enormous amount of my fixed income pays my insurance premiums and covers prescription medications. How much of your income is dedicated to health care? Whom are you representing besides the interests of lobbyists that have bankrolled your election bid? I never expected, after a lifetime teaching children, that my health care in my golden years would swallow up my hard-earned pension.

What we need from Congress is a program like Medicare, for all citizens. How is it possible for Canada, England, France, Italy, to have universal health care? What do we have to do to keep our priorities straight? In the richest country in the world, people are bankrupted by their medical bills.

Insurance companies are providing nothing for free. Their bottom line is profit. Nobody is covered adequately. If we provide health coverage the way we provide education, police and city emergency services, we would have a healthier nation.

Regardless of your political affiliations, you have the responsibility to represent the wishes of the citizens you represent back home. Do you know how people suffer back in your district? When was the last time you discussed the cost of health care for average folks in your home district?

I hope you get to know who we are and what our stories are. I'm sure, with that knowledge, you would commit to solving the health care problem in America.