I Sent A Letter

[kerravonsen]

To my local MP. (via GetUp)

Please explain why the government has $1Billion dollars free to give to the Adani coal mine, and not enough money to maintain Medicare. The Medicare rebate freeze causes financial hardship to the Aussie battlers who need it the most. The Adani mine gives money to rich foreigners who don't vote. Guess who is going to vote you out? The Aussie battlers are. Be sensible. Support Medicare, not foreigners.

Blunt, and far too pragmatic, but I didn't have the energy to be more subtle.

Comments

[dreamflower]

We will be Medicare eligible this year, but with Trump going in office (and all these billionaires who think of things like SS and Medicare as "entitlements" in his cabinet, I don't know what's going to happen.

I hate to hear you seem to be having the same sorts of problems in your neck of the woods!

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Oh. You live on the other side but these problems are probably global...
No subtlety, just that. Yes. Clear enough! Go!

[kerravonsen]

Our "medicare" is actually a universal health-care system, not a hardship-based one. Not as "universal" as the British NHS, it only covers "essentials" (of which, apparently, dentists are not, for example). But yeah, we still have the same rich assholes who think that poor people deserve to be sick, rather than waking up to the fact that keeping the entire nation healthy is a public good.

[kerravonsen]

8-)

[dreamflower]

Medicare in the US is not hardship based, but age based: everyone 65 and over is allowed to join Medicare. I turn 65 in July, my husband in September. It's usually necessary to still purchase a supplemental policy, since Medicare also doesn't cover certain things.

Medicaid, OTH is hardship based and horribly unfair, because some states fully participate, while others turn down the Federal aid that is meant to go with it because the political leaders of those states don't want to be part of the "big government hand outs" (sadly Oklahoma is one of those states) and so they don't have enough funds to cover everyone who should be Medicaid eligible.

The most sensible thing to do to overhaul the US health care system is to gradually lower the age of Medicare until it covers everyone. Something that will probably never happen, and definitely won't happen in the next four years.