Friday, October 02, 2009

Catherines

I love shopping at Catherines. When I used to live in Salem, I always shopped at Catherines on Lancaster in East Salem. I love the twice yearly clearance sales. One is going on right now and it's worth going to Catherines to look around.

I drove to Salem yesterday to shop at Catherines because they are having their 70% off clearance sale plus I had an additional 30% off coupon on top of that. I found a beautiful dress with a jacket that is fully lined and originally $95. It had been marked down to $45.98. I got 70% off that so that took off another $32.19. The other 30% off took off another $4.14 bringing the grand total to $9.65. Such a deal! It was worth the trip.

I love Catherines. The clothes are high quality and beautiful fashion. I only buy at clearance time because I don't have the money to shop like other women with more money. I'd rather buy quality and nice clothes that last and last on clearance. Most of the clothes that I have were purchased at Catherines years ago. They last and look great years after.

Medicare

Medicare doesn't work as well as some may think.

My husband almost died twice in the last two years. The last time he entered the hospital in Corvallis with renal failure and was in the ICU for 10 days. He was on dialysis for about two months.

My husband has Medicare Part A and Part D. When he went into the hospital this last time, we signed him up for Medicare Part B. He couldn't afford it before. Because he wasn't on dialysis for over three months, Medicare didn't pay for renal treatment. My husband had to drop Medicare Part B because he couldn't afford the premium of almost $400 a month and the co-payments for care.

There is something wrong when premiums for Medicare keep going up and up and up. We need to help and protect those who are sick. We need to protect the elderly and those who need help. Those with Medicare are often people with limited income and their premiums shouldn't be raised EVER.

The Obama Plan for Health Care

I went online at www.whitehouse.gov to find the health care plan by President Obama.

I'm concerned that it cares more about keeping insurance companies vital and healthy than keeping the people in America healthly with good medical care. We have helped too many businesses in the last year which just wants to take money and not help people.

I don't want to be forced to pay for insurance I don't use. My gym membership is my health insurance. My gym membership is cheaper than health insurance and it prevents problems.

We need single payer health care so there is care for all Americans. We need to place an emphasis on prevention. We need to make sure that all people get high quality medical care.

C-Span

I was watching C-Span yesterday as I was on the elliptical runner for an hour at Timberhill Athletic Club.

In the Senate, I listened to Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio who read heartbreaking letters from people who live in Ohio who are suffering without adequate health care. I like him. He cares about the people in Ohio. Senator Sanders is doing his job by listening and identifying problems in health care. Now he needs to take action to prevent these stories from happening again to anyone else.

Senator Bernie Sanders an Independent from Vermont was listing the millions of dollars and billions of dollars of fines paid by the major builders of aircraft. For example, the military was given aircraft with defective gears which have resulted in deaths. In stead of correcting the problem, they pay fines. Senator Sanders is doing his job by identifying these problems. Now he needs to take action and prevent it from happening again.

In the House of Representatives, it was a different tale. Representative Steve King, a Republican from Iowa spoke about people going bankrupt from medical bills. He celebrates and wants to protect the freedom that we have in this country to go bankrupt from medical bills. Representative Todd Akin, a Republican from Missouri spoke about the freedom to have 7 bipass heart surgery. I don't get it. Why doesn't Representative Steve King care about preventing people from having to go bankrupt from medical bills by solving the problems? Why doesn't Representative Todd Akin care about preventing anyone needing 7 bipass heart surgery by solving the medical crisis in this country? We need to place emphasis on prevention, solving problems, and taking action.

Health Care Crisis

I believe we have a crisis of care in the medical community in this country. When a doctor sees a patient for 5 to 10 minutes for one symptom, how can he or she possibly solve any medical problem? There needs to be time spent on reading files, thinking, researching, and listening to all the symptoms of the patient. When a doctor sees a patient for 5 minutes, he can't possibly solve any problems, except for the simple and easy to diagnose.

Emphasis is now on greed and getting as many patients through the door as possible in a short amount of time. No answers can be found this way. In fact, it is training doctors to not be able to think or solve medical problems. We are destroying the role and potential of physicians by doing this.

Emphasis should be placed on prevention and the care of the patient. We need single payer health care and give care to all people who need it in this country.