Hunter and his brother Owen Martin, ages 10 and 7 both wear hearing aids. They live with their parents in Illiopolis, along with Hunter’s twin sister, Hannah, and Owen’s twin brother, Noah.
Up until now insurance companies refused to cover the cost of their hearing aids which can be as expensive at $6,000 a pair.
I know this because I spent nearly that much for mine.
But Hunter (Remember. He’s 10) decided he could do something and launched a lobbying campaign for hearing aid coverage. Earlier this month both chambers of the Illinois legislature unanimously passed a bill, now waiting for Governor Rauner’s signature, to require insurance coverage of the cost of hearing aids for those with hearing loss and are under the age of 18.
Hunter’s parents are both educators. His mom is a social worker at Douglas School in Springfield, and his dad is a history teacher at Sangamon Valley Middle School in Illiopolis. They have good insurance. Their plans do not cover hearing aids.
Those of us who are retirees need to sit down with Hunter and learn what he has learned from lobbying the legislature to address the concerns of those with hearing loss.
The insurance companies opposed the legislation, of course.
Good for the legislature for ignoring the insurance companies for a change.
Here is my question:
Hearing loss and hearing aids are not cosmetic and are needed by people of all ages.
Why not universal coverage, requiring insurance companies to cover everyone who needs a hearing aid?
You know those huge inflatable rats that are posted outside labor disputes? Well today I came across one at the Red Roof Inn. At the corner of St. Clair and Ontario.
Actually, there wasn’t just a rat.
There were two rats and a pig and a cat. And a sign that said “Danger Asbestos.”
One of the carpenter union guys told me his story.
Red Roof has non-union workers sneak in after 3:30. That’s why Scabby the Rat is there.
But there’s more to this story. Those non-union workers are in a building where asbestos was uncovered and not handled properly. The EPA knows about this but is not doing anything, following orders from EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt and Donald Trump.
This means the City left to enforce environmental regulations.
When I was at the site there was no activity going on, aside from the union guys out front.
Maybe the non-union guys are doing the asbestos abatement. But I somehow doubt it.
By Ken Previti. Ken is a retired Illinois teacher living with his wife Mary Lou Previti in Florida. He is a long-time education activist and pension warrior.
I have successfully gotten through triple bypass surgery. More than successfully, if that is possible.
After having an unsuccessful heart catheterization on March 15 (Beware the Ides of March.) to place stents in my heart, the triple bypass surgery was postponed until March 22 due to staffing and surgery room availability. On March 22, it was again postponed (due to a computer shutdown at the hospital for three days) to March 29 when bypass was finally performed.. The 5 to 7 day average hospital stay turned into 8 days for me because I was still producing too much fluid drainage. I was sent home on Thursday at 8:00 PM. Holmes Hospital Heart Center is understaffed, overworked and (for most) underpaid. These people have my everlasting love.
I came through it all in incredible health and strength. Fortunately, my lungs are naturally very large, and I have never smoked. My peasant stock and DNA favored me. I was walking with no aid (walker or cane) since March 31, and have no need for assistance with walking, bathing or breathing. My pain level is quite easy to handle – with painkiller medications and the plethora of medications I will temporarily be taking. Since I had no heart attacks or strokes prior to or during this, my heart is considered to be very healthy.
As I heal, I get very weak and tire easily. Big deal.
Basically, I lucked out.
I have Medicare and a secondary insurance. I had decent surgeons, doctors, nurses and other staff. I have decent 21st Century medications and insurance. Decent.
Decency is a basic measurement of civilization. Be decent to others as you would have them decent to you. Everyone deserves healthcare – not merely emergency room temporary stuff. No one needs to earn it. The decent civilized nations of the world know and practice that. Yes, those nations need not be made great again. They have outdone us in everything except rah-rah propaganda.
How can we afford healthcare for all? If one man, Jeff Bezos, actually paid taxes, America could easily afford healthcare for all. One man. 320,000,000 Americans versus Jeff Bezos.
If all of our oligarchs paid the same fair tax rate that they paid under President Ronald Reagan, healthcare for all, actual decent Social Security, a workable infrastructure and much more would be affordable, and the oligarchs would still be fabulously wealthy.
Who made our politicians little gods who determine who is deserving and who is not deserving? “The best healthcare you can afford” and “access to healthcare” are class warfare code for unfair healthcare. The wealthy deserve more than those who actually improve our society – when this is examined. God made the super wealthy deserving and the rest of us as undeserving; He has blessed them therefore damning us. This is pure propaganda while waving flags and other illusions of freedom that take the place of a decent society.
Yes, I feel guilty to be receiving the healthcare I have. Yes, I deserve healthcare. Yes, a baby girl with a hole in her heart deserves healthcare. Yes, a screwball twenty-something who runs his motorcycle off the road deserves healthcare. The underemployed and underpaid employees at Walmart deserve healthcare. The unemployed engineer who is approaching destitution deserves healthcare. Veterans and non-veterans deserve healthcare. People of all races and combinations deserve healthcare. Pregnant and non-pregnant women deserve healthcare. Christians and non-Christians deserve healthcare. Even the legally thieving lawmakers who are doing the bidding of the oligarchs deserve healthcare. Yes, even those I personally feel do not deserve it, deserve healthcare.
We all deserve healthcare.
I have benefitted from my healthcare, and am grateful beyond words.
You also deserve healthcare.
We must demand healthcare and more if we wish to regain what used to be our democratic republic.
No, as you said Medicare is not free, as some believe.
You pay for the benefit through your Social Security installments while employed and then again monthly after age 65. For many the monthly SS benefit is enough to cover the subsequent monthly Medicare installments. But some recipients will be penalized to pay an even “higher premium amount”.
While Hurricane “IRMA” rips through our nation causing catastrophic loss and suffering, another IRMAA impacts many Medicare recipients with 20 to 30% higher monthly premiums for the same coverage.
If your modified adjusted gross income is above a certain amount, (I believe its $85,000) you will pay an Income Related Monthly Adjustment Amount (IRMAA). Medicare uses the modified adjusted gross income reported on your IRS tax return from 2 years ago (the most recent tax return information provided to Social Security by the IRS).
So at retirement, Illinois public pension recipients are penalized by the WEP (Windfall Elimination Provision) which reduces Social Security benefits up to 60%. Then at age 65 you have to pay a monthly premium for Medicare, which may be up to 30% higher than most! Based on your income.
The World we live in!
There’s not much talk about the “real problems” with healthcare in America! As you noted, a simple hearing aid (a basic need) can cost upwards of $3,000. While the cost of a simple life saving epipen has increased 500% since 2009 from $67.00 to over $1,000. Or an MRI, crucial for diagnostic and preventive measures, can cost $5,000 or more with most providers.
In conjunction with your healthcare plan you get high premiums, network limitations, drug restrictions i.e.. generic verses brand and the bonus of astronomical insurance deductibles and co-pays that must be met before your insurance benefits even kick in!
It’s important to note here that it’s one thing to have insurance coverage and another to be able to utilize it!
While professional services and procedures, hospitalization and equipment , and prescription drugs continue to skyrocket in price and diminish in quality and availability, who can really afford healthcare and actually use it?
Case in point:I sought an appointment recently with my PCP, (Primary Care Provider – no not the drug) in Skokie, IL and the earliest appointment was 3 to 4 months out. Then I sought a referral in network which once granted was 6 to 7 months out!
And until recently physicians across our nation freely prescribed ample pain killers and other metabolically altering drugs with 2 to 3 easy refills. ”Just take 2 of these and go home.” So that once you get hooked on a certain pain killer like Norco or other opioids you can easily get addicted.
A family member of mine was once told by the doctor to take up to 16 opioids a day as needed to arrest the pain even though the posted dosage was take 2 tablets 3 or 4 times daily.
16 pills! Opioid addiction is one thing. Killing your liver is another!
The main problem with health though care is its cost! There must be some controls, some limitations, to rising fees. The pharmaceutical corporations care about the dollars. Not enough emphasis is on the health and welfare of the patient.
Illinois Supreme Court justice Bob Thomas challenges state’s lawyer on pension theft.
Even if the U.S. Senate passes anything close to looking like the Trumpcare health care bill that the Republicans passed in the U.S. House it will be a life-threatening disaster for millions of American families.
I can’t even make pre-existing condition visual jokes on Facebook and my blog about it. Others have tried. The crisis just can’t be made funny or ironic.
This isn’t one of those cases where people try to do what they said they would, but fall short in the execution. This is an act of deliberate betrayal: Everything about Trumpcare is specifically designed to do exactly the opposite of what Trump, Paul Ryan and other Republicans said it would.
Later Krugman writes:
There is a powerful faction within the G.O.P. for whom cutting taxes on the rich is more or less the only thing that matters.
And on a more subjective note, don’t you get the impression that Donald Trump gets some positive pleasure out of taking people who make the mistake of trusting him for a ride?
As for why they think they can get away with it: Well, isn’t recent history on their side? The general shape of what the G.O.P. would do to health care, for the white working class in particular, has long been obvious, yet many people who were sure to lose, bigly, voted Trump anyway.
Why shouldn’t Republicans believe they can convince those same voters that the terrible things that will happen if Trumpcare becomes law are somehow liberals’ fault?
And for that matter, how confident are you that mainstream media will resist the temptation of both-sides-ism, the urge to produce “balanced” reporting that blurs the awful reality of what Trumpcare will do if enacted?
In any case, let’s be clear: What just happened on health care shouldn’t be treated as just another case of cynical political deal making. This was a Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength moment. And it may be the shape of things to come.
What struck me about what Krugman says about Trumpcare is that exactly could be written about Illinois pension reform if you replace G.O.P. with Democrats and replace health care with pensions.
We wrote basically this column over and over again four years ago when Illinois Democrats passed pension theft.
Both Trumpcare and pension reform are attacks on the lives of working and poor people and it is a bi-partisan thing by whatever the party is in power – Repugs now in D.C. and Dems when Pat Quinn rented the Governor’s mansion.
In writing the decision that ruled the Democrat’s pension theft unconstitutional, the justices of the Illinois Supreme Court wrote:
The General Assembly may not legislate on a subject withdrawn from its authority by the constitution and it cannot rely on police powers to overcome this limitation.
As we have already explained, there simply is no police power to disregard the express provisions of the constitution.
It could not be otherwise, for if police powers could be invoked to nullify express constitutional rights and protections whenever the legislature (or other branches of government) felt that economic or other exigencies warranted, it is not merely pension benefits of public employees that would be in jeopardy. No rights or property would be safe from the State. Today it is nullification of the right to retirement benefits. Tomorrow it could be renunciation of the duty to repay State obligations.
Eventually, investment capital could be seized. Under the State’s reasoning, the only limit on the police power would be the scope of the emergency. The legislature could do whatever it felt it needed to do under the circumstances. And more than that, through its funding decisions, it could create the very emergency conditions used to justify its suspension of the rights conferred and protected by the constitution. If financial markets were rational, this prospect would not buoy our economy, it would ruin it.
In the days before the Illinois legislature voted to steal our pensions I and my fellow teachers and retirees met with many, mostly Democratic state representatives, to present our case against pension theft.
In many cases they had not read the bill. We met with a number who had not seen the bill nearly 12 hours before voting on it. Many had no idea about the consequences, intended and unintended.
Many knew it would not pass constitutional muster.
It was ruled unconstitutional almost exactly two years ago.
The threat of pension theft was and remains a terrible fear for many active and especially retired public employees.
The fear of poverty in their old age has taken a physical toll on the elderly.
When we argued that pension theft and health care are moral – not just a political or a legal obligation – the current leadership of the two Parties cannot claim moral superiority.
First of all, the results are pretty good for a guy who turns 70 next year. I don’t turn 69 until June, but I like saying, “I turn 70 next year.”
I go to the gym regularly. I try to watch any up-tick in my weight. I have to control my blood pressure with some meds. But all-in-all, the doctor and I were satisfied with the results.
The health insurance system works pretty well for me.
I am insured through a combination of Medicare and the retired teacher’s state health care system. It is not free. I pay a premium for insurance which is subsidized by payments from the state. I helped support the subsidy to retirees by payments I made when I was an active teacher.
Like my pension, that was the deal made when I started teaching 35 years ago.
Now Governor Rauner is threatening to end the state subsidy.
Teachers’ Retirement Insurance Program (TRIP) is composed of two insurance programs: Standard TRIP and TRAIL. Standard TRIP is the health insurance for those retirees under 65 years old and those retirees who are not Medicare eligible.
The February breakdown from Central Management Systems (CMS) of funding sources for TRIP are as follows:
Active Teachers 24.5%
Retirees 31.6%
School Districts 18.4%
State of Illinois 22.9%
Medicare 0.4%
Other 2.2%
IF the governor’s budget were to be adopted with the TRIP line zeroed out, then retiree-participants would have to bear the increased cost or drop out of TRIP and go to the public marketplace for insurance coverage.
Breaking a promise made to me when I began teaching would cause my slightly elevated current blood pressure to rise even more.
To the trolls who will surely want write and tell me how unfair it is that Illinois’s teachers have it so good: Don’t bother.
Nobody is more aware than I am that it could be worse. And it is worse for many, even with the Affordable Care Act that the Repugs are again trying to do away with.
Take the case of the retired mine workers who will lose their health coverage later this month if Congress doesn’t act.
Donald J. Trump made coal miners a central metaphor of his presidential campaign, promising to “put our miners back to work” and look after their interests in a way that the Obama administration did not.
Now, three months into his presidency, comes a test of that promise.
Unless Congress intervenes by late April, government-funded health benefits will abruptly lapse for more than 20,000 retired miners, concentrated in Trump states that include Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Many of the miners have serious health problems arising from their years in the mines.
In mining areas like Uniontown, Pa., and surrounding Fayette and Greene Counties, which Mr. Trump carried 2 to 1, it is an upsetting and potentially costly prospect. “It’s just a terrible, terrible feeling,” said one of the retirees, David VanSickle, who spent four decades at work in the mines. “I think about that 25 times a day.”
The president has offered no public comment on the issue, even as he has rolled back regulations on mine operators, an omission that has not escaped the notice of Mr. VanSickle and other retired miners.
“To me, that was kind of a promise he did make to us,” Mr. VanSickle said about Mr. Trump, whom he supported last fall. “He promised to help miners, not just mining companies.”
Yes. They voted for Trump. But I take no satisfaction in saying that they were foolish to believe him.
In a society that thinks of itself as democratic and humane, where affordable healthcare and quality public education should be a right, it is crazy that we are still fighting for both.
In spite of right-wing evangelist Pat Robertson’s declaring that he thought God was Speaker of the House, it turned out it was Paul Ryan.
I posted the word Schadenfruede on Facebook last week as it became clear the the Trumpists were on the verge of crashing and burning over repeal and replace.
It is a German word meaning deriving pleasure from the misfortune of others.
Reading that, some friends thought I was referring to the way Republicans in Congress and holding office elsewhere seem to get pleasure from the pain and suffering of working class and poor folks.
I was referring to the pleasure I was feeling watching TrumpRyan fumble, flail and fail.
There is another German word I know and like. Gemütlichkeit means having good cheer.
I’m feeling that at the moment too.
Health care in America is another one of those choice things.
The rich and wealthy get to choose. And so do we. They get the right to choose the kind of health care they can afford. So do we.
As a retired public school teacher my health care costs are manageable but in spite of what some think, my retiree insurance is hardly free.
I pay out of pocket for Medicare. I pay a monthly premium for the state teachers health insurance. I would not be affected by ACA one way or the other. But there is always the threat that I can lose what I have if the legislature acts.
There has been some talk from the Illinois legislature to take away the partial subsidy provided by the state to our health care costs.
As part of our teacher pension benefit, I believe the subsidy is protected by the pension protection clause of the state constitution. If the governor and the legislature try to take the subsidy away, I suppose the courts will have to remind them of Kanerva v. Weems.
As with the threats prior to the decision of the Illinois courts that current retiree pensions are protected, the threat to health care subsidies is particularly stressful on our older retirees.
Do the legislature and the Governor feel a certain amount of schadenfreude over this? They must.
I am with those who continue to wonder why the United States is among the very few wealthy, industrialized countries without a national health care system that is affordable, not tied to employment or run by the giant insurance companies.
Saving ACA is a win.
It is surely a loss for the Trumpists.
But a national single payer system of health care would bring us all Gemütlichkeit.
“When I retired after working 33 years for the Chicago Public Library, I did so with the understanding that I would receive subsidies for my health care,” said Mary Jones, president of the Chicago-area AFSCME Retirees Subchapter, “Now the City is abandoning City retirees, and we are faced with some very hard choices about how to get by on our modest pensions.”
Mother, and childcare specialist April Drayton described the tense realities in the childcare field due to Governor Bruce Rauner’s slashing of childcare and early learning budgets. “Despite having multiple degrees in early childhood education, I make just $11.35 an hour with no benefits, because that’s all the daycare owner can afford to pay me,” said Drayton. “We should be clear whose work is being undervalued and underpaid — the childcare workforce in Chicago is overwhelmingly women, half of us are African-Amercan, and another third of the workforce is Latino.”
We really value hearing directly from Chicagoans in this process,” said Progressive Caucus Chair Ald. Scott Waguespack (32). “We heard the voices of our constituents loudly–it is time to start asking the wealthiest among us and the major corporations who call Chicago home to pay more, so that we can fully fund the priorities and needs of our residents.”
The Progressive Reform Caucus includes Ald. Leslie Hairston (5); Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6); Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza (10); Ald. Toni Foulkes (16); Ald. David Moore (17); Ald. Ricardo Muñoz (22); Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29); Ald. Scott Waguespack (32); Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35); Ald. Nick Sposato (38); and Ald. John Arena (45).
If the Emanuel Administration follows through on its planned phase out of all City of Chicago health care plans for retired city employees, many retirees could find themselves without any health insurance coverage at all after January 1.
The city claims that retirees will be able to get coverage under the Affordable Care Act, but there is a very real danger that President-Elect Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans will move quickly to repeal the ACA.
Retirees who aren’t eligible for Medicare do have a coverage option outside the ACA, but this new, city-initiated Blue Cross Blue Shield plan would cost around $1,400 a month ($16,800 a year). That’s nearly half of the average pension of a City of Chicago retiree in the municipal fund.
“It’s like the city of Chicago tied cement blocks to our feet and dropped us in Lake Michigan to drown,” said Dorothy Harding, an AFSCME Retirees sub-chapter 60 member.
AFSCME has enlisted the aid of concerned aldermen to press the Emanuel Administration to extend city health insurance subsidies for retirees with modest incomes who are not eligible for Medicare.
“It would be unconscionable for the city to ignore its responsibility to retirees,” AFSCME Council 31 Director of Research and Benefits Martha Merrill said. “We continue to press for a solution that ensures Chicago retirees have affordable health care in their retirement.”
Fred Klonsky 