The Burrow

And yes, there's an ack  in the title. TrumpCare is back, and it's worse than ever.  John McCain's best friend, Lindsay Graham, joined with Louisiana's Bill Cassidy in introducing a revised repeal-and-replace bill that Ohio's John Kasich tweeets   eliminates the guardrails that protect some of the most vulnerable among us. In a sop to my own Senator's NO vote in July, Arizona is poised to receive heaping piles of pork from Graham-Cassidy.  Can he be bought off?  I tried to ask his office that very question this morning, but the phone was busy ... very very busy .... in the car (on speakerphone if I had ever gotten through).. from home ... on my cell on the way to pick up the mail.  I'll comment on his website and his Facebook page, but I wanted to have my voice heard, too. Indivisible has a lengthy but readable outline of the bill here .  There's a sample script for contacting your Senators here .  If you live in Arizona  or Ohio  ...

OFA invited me to a public event on a sunny Saturday morning.  I debated taking Amster's boys, but got caught up in the fact that they are now older than CTG will ever be, and so I went on my own.  That took some courage, a prophylactic email to the organizer affirming that there would be security, and the ability to stand for an hour or two.  I had it covered, but I was still anxious. But Topher Spiro , policy wonk hero, was driving a bus across the USofA , and he chose to stop in Tucson.  Civic pride and curiosity about his message to exhausted members of the choir (after a resounding victory on healthcare) combined to propel me across town.  I knew I'd made the right decision when I saw his shirt. Big Cuter wore the same shirt  last week in Indiana.   Explaining it to me , he called it his stealth shirt , the message arcane enough to be safe in any political environment. Veterans for Peace were there to keep us safe, but ther...

She's got almost 20 years on me, and her joints are just as old.  I've been watching her locomote with pain since we met.  After today, a lot of that should change. She's been through physical therapy and massage therapy and cortisone shots.  She bought a zero gravity recliner in which she found relief, sometimes.  Sleeping through the night was not an option; the pain woke her, reminded her that she was here, left her suffering. It was time for surgery. She's had more serious procedures in the past.  She's traveled to the best doctor for this, that, and the other thing.  But this knee replacement is happening across town, at the brand new Tucson Orthopedic Institute at Tucson Medical Center, with a doctor she's known for decades.  She loves him.  He explains everything clearly.  He is optimistic.  He is realistic.  He's hers and she's confident and so, when I arrived just before they wheeled her into the surgical suite, she w...

I have health insurance. I probably wouldn't have health insurance were it not for the Affordable Care Act. My room-and-board bill after eleven days in the hospital back in January, 2011, was $145,000. That's for the bed and the sheets and the cleaning staff and the food and the aides and the nurses.  It doesn't include any of the tests, procedures, materials, surgeries, anesthesia, physicians, therapists, or consultations. It cost that much for me to sleep there... though I didn't do much sleeping, if the truth be told. I was lucky.  My costs were covered by several government programs which come into play when you are shot standing ten feet from your Congresswoman.  That's called "participation in a federally protected activity" and interfering with my participation in that activity is the reason the shooter is spending twenty of his 140-years-after-his-seven-life-sentences in a Federal penitentiary.  Getting shot is never a good idea.  If it's g...

Something made me check the missed calls section of the answering machine on the home phone yesterday.  I know, I know, it dates me that I still have a land line and an answering machine... but I do, and I use them,. I'm still wondering what made me check back and see who hadn't left a message.  Most of the blank spaces on the machine's tape have been from political robo-calls which recognize the mechanized beep and fail to leave a message.  Those are not calls which need to be heard, let alone recorded.  Why I thought there might be something worthwhile hiding in there remains a mystery, and yet there it was. There was a missed call from the pod castle. I dialed the number, and wondered if anyone knew why a call had been made to my house. In fact, she did.  Without skipping a beat, the worker bee informed me that G'ma had a dislocated hip. They had faxed the doctor but he hadn't called them back. They were just letting me know. Frantic doesn't come close ...

Can I opt out, too? As I understand it, the Conservative objection to ObamaCare centers around the mandate.  Extending benefits to millions more by requiring the states to expand their definition of need seems to be an easier proposition for the Justices to examine dispassionately.  Telling me what to do has a stickier presence. I get it.  I really do.  the Pilgrims came to our shores because they were peeved - the government was telling them how to live their lives and they wouldn't take it any more. Of course, they got to our shores and began expelling people from their colony when beliefs clashed.  Even in elementary school I was bothered by the hypocrisy of it.  Fleeing your homeland because you couldn't pray the way you chose was a stand-alone good reason.  Sailing across the pond and doing the same thing to others always struck me as the height of hypocrisy.  Didn't they get it?  Were the Pilgrims just looking for a spot of land...

As a very young and very new social worker on the neurology service of a major metropolitan cancer hospital,  I was befriended by the Chief Resident.  He was short, dark and handsome and enjoyed the fact that my office always had a bowl of hard candy on the visitor's table.  I enjoyed the fact that he could sit silently in my office, quiet with his own thoughts, but there, reminding me that I was not alone. His wit and his compassion and his willingness to actually listen to the patients were added bonuses.  He was, in short, a mensch .  For those of you unfamiliar with hospital hierarchies in the 1970's, a brief tutorial may be in order. Basically,  it was all about power.  Hospitals were color coded. Maintenance, janitorial, food service, nurses, assistants and physicians of all levels of training and certification, all the ancillary services -- each had its own color or style and, except for pediatrics, where Winnie the Pooh was popular across bo...

I used to like opening the mail. A letter, a postcard, a sale announcement and the local weekly newspaper accompanying a bill or two, all placed in the mailbox just to the left of the front door, underneath the house numbers. The mailman was a friendly and familiar face. He shared lemonade and iced tea and once I even got to have ginger ale before lunch because he would share it with me. Now, sometimes I get my mail and sometimes I don't because it's mixed up with my neighbors' deliveries. And when it does arrive, it's advertisements for stores I've never heard of and solicitations and bills. And it's the bills I want to talk about. Actually, it's one bill in particular. Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Arizona has raised our premium 9.2%. I just had TBG show me how to figure it out on the calculator (my miserable math skills will make for a very interesting post someday) and it's true. We were healthier last year than we'd been the year before. In fact, th...

I'm getting a little bit tired ...ok, a lot tired..... of the process stories surrounding health care. There are serious issues being discussed behind closed doors, and while I know that we only hear what they want us to hear, and that the media is manipulated by planted leaks and back stories, I'm looking for the investigative journalists who will present a reasoned, well thought out analysis of what's being proposed and who's against it and why. Instead, we are overwhelmed with Rep. Joe Wilson and "You lie!" Parsing the phrase has become a national sport; he didn't actually call the President of the United States a liar, he was only referencing the statement. Sure. Any kid on the playground knows there's really not much of a difference. Of course, that child also knows that you don't call out in the middle of an assembly. It's just not done. And that's where I start and finish with Representative Wilson's behavior. It was " dow...

Personal responsibility is an issue near and dear to my heart. Hearing President Obama urge Americans to take charge of their health made me smile; it was so parental and so true. " No, you'll spoil your appetite" No, you can't have THAT for dinner" "Yes, carrots are a healthy snack" "Didn't the doctor explain that ice cream gives you a tummy ache because you're allergic to milk?" Parenting thrusts ordinary humans into the roles of nutritionist and pharmacist and ER nurse, and does it all without training or support. Sure, you can look on WebMD (what I would've given for that when the Little Cuter's 2 month old body was covered with the world's most awful rash!) and read the labels and use your brain, but most of it comes from experience. And if your experience has been watching your parents shove Big Macs into their faces while driving 2 blocks to the grocery store for chips and soda then that's what you're go...

Don't facts matter anymore? Representative Michelle Bachman opens her mouth and out comes drivel. Now, who exactly was President of the United States in 1976, ma'am? Did anyone ever teach you the difference between correlation and causation? And you are making laws for us, poor citizens that we are. Your health insurance might cost $500 per month. But that's not really a fact, because you have deductibles and co-pays and out-of-pocket-maximums and excluded procedures and a few other small print items. Get hit by a bus, no worries. But have routine medical issues normally associated with life in the retired lane? Keep that Visa card handy; you'll need it. Some things that used to be facts now are faux-facts . Take a carton of ice cream, for example. I'm serious; take the carton in your hand next time you're in the grocery store. Does it feel different somehow? It should - it's lighter than it used to be. Chips, cookies, and crackers are just some...